


From Crayons to Perfume

by amycarey



Series: To Sir With Love [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Curse, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1811146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan ran from Storybrooke at 18 and never planned to return. She doesn't want to see Regina Mills, her terrifying high school English teacher, or the kid she abandoned. </p><p>But life has a way of catching up on us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Another Brick in the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Because apparently the world doesn't have enough weirdly specific AUs.

_Regina Mills has her up against the wall in the English resource room; Emma’s hands are clutching at copies of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’. The shelves shake and she glimpses several paperbacks of ‘The Joy Luck Club’ slip off the shelf, landing on the floor beside her, but she can’t bring herself to care, not when Regina Mills’ incredible mouth is nipping and kissing its way down her neck, to her collar bones, to the rivulet between her breasts, encased in a black cotton bra and currently very uncovered by her shirt._

_“Shit, Mills,” Emma moans and Regina shushes her._

_“Quiet, Ms Swan,” she says, lips curving into an evil smile somewhat deflated by the smears of red lipstick around her mouth and heavy lidded eyes, “or we’ll have to stop.”_

_“No,” Emma breathes. “No stopping.”_

_“As you wish,” Regina says and she slides her hand into Emma’s trousers._

_When she’d returned to Storybrooke High School as a teacher, she’d never imagined Ms Mills, the evil queen of an English teacher she’d had a massive crush on, would have her finger pressed against Emma’s clit._

_But then, she’d never expected to return to Storybrooke in the first place._

 

*

 

“Emma Swan. My classroom. Now.”

 

Emma was hanging out at her locker with her best friend, Ruby, when her English teacher strode up to her with something akin to cold fury in her eyes. Ruby pulled a face. “Poor you,” she muttered.

 

Emma followed Ms Mills down the hallway, trying not to look at her butt swaying in its pencil skirt. It was Mills’ second year teaching at Storybrooke High School and normally new teachers were over-enthusiastic and earnest and perky – and in Emma’s wide experience at numerous schools, English teachers were the worst for these qualities, inexperienced or otherwise. Not Ms Mills though. Trust Emma’s luck to have the one hard-ass on the English staff as a teacher. Emma had lost count of the number of late detentions she’d had from her and her English grades had gone from A’s to B’s because Ms Mills didn’t believe in giving the benefit of the doubt and took points off for every spelling error or incomplete sentence.

 

Ms Mills held the door open to the classroom, tapping her high heeled foot. “Sit down, Miss Swan.”

 

Emma sat in the chair in front of Ms Mills’ desk. It was lower than Ms Mills’ own chair, an obvious power play, which didn’t make it any more comfortable. “That your husband?” she asked, pointing at the framed photograph on her desk, a picture of Ms Mills and a dark-haired man, both of them smiling widely.

 

“This essay,” Ms Mills said, ignoring the question and shaking a sheath of paper in Emma’s scribbly handwriting in front of her. Emma spotted an alarming amount of red ink marking the pages. “It is subpar.”

 

“I did my best,” Emma mumbled. She didn’t, of course. She had other things going on at the moment and English essays, which she normally found pretty straightforward, had become low on the priority list, though still slightly above her Government term paper.

 

“Do you know why I’m angry?” Ms Mills said, eyes flashing. “You have so much potential for this subject and you’re wasting it. Is there something going on outside of school or is this indolence something to which I should become accustomed?”

 

“No, I’m sorry,” Emma said. Her stomach lurched. “I…” She lept up and ran to the nearest bathroom. Threw up. Where some people got morning sickness Emma apparently got all day sickness, though she had mostly managed to contain her puking to toilet breaks until now. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and exited the cubicle, running straight into Ms Mills.

 

“Nothing going on, huh?” she said, arms crossed, and Emma burst into tears.

 

*

 

Emma’s not an idiot. She knows she’s no Erin Gruwell. She’d never get a job in a bra shop to buy books for her students, for instance. She also knows Storybrooke’s a far cry from the projects in LA. But sometimes she feels a little bit like Erin, inspiring the uninspired, teaching the unteachable. It’s her first week at Storybrooke High and her classes are just getting into the swing of things.

 

“Kid,” she says to a sullen sophomore boy, who is refusing to write a word of his book review and has just told her she ‘doesn’t know shit’ about what he’s going through. “I got kicked out of this school half way through my senior year.” She’s crouched down at his desk, eye level with him.

 

“Whatever,” he says, snorting. “You’re a teacher.”

 

“Yeah, and when I was 17 I was a foster kid and pretty screwed up. I know you think this sucks, I know you hate English…”

 

“Sup, Ms Mills,” a kid from across the classroom says. Emma spins around to find her head of department, Regina Mills, staring impassively at her from the doorway.

 

“Be cool, guys,” Emma says. “Pretend like I’m a good teacher for thirty seconds.” A few kids laugh but, honestly, most of them are pretty focused and haven’t even noticed Regina Mills enter the room.

 

“Can I help you?” Emma asks, following Regina into the corridor. The woman makes her nervous. Ruby is still convinced she’s actually a super-villain and there is definitely something terrifying in the purse of her lips and the arch of her eyebrows. Emma has seen that face soften before, even if it was over ten years ago, but she’s pretty sure the terrifying mask has become her actual character now. Regina did not smile once in the interview to hire Emma – last minute because Graham Herbert quit just before the semester began to commune with nature in the wilds of Alaska – and was ruthless with her questioning.

 

“The noise from your class is distracting my students,” Regina says.

 

“Oh.” Emma feels her face flush. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut the door.” For late September, it’s blisteringly hot and the air con in Emma’s classroom is busted so opening the doors and windows is the only way to even remotely cool down.

 

Regina looks her up and down and Emma begins to feel self-conscious about the bare feet (because if she can’t wear clumpy boots or chucks, she’d rather go bare foot and so her heels are kicked off under her desk the moment she arrives in her classroom) and the fact that she didn’t actually iron her shirt this morning, just shoved it on and hoped for the best. “I’d appreciate that,” she says.

 

Emma returns to her class. “Did the Evil Queen kill you?” one of her students asks.

 

“Fantastic literary allusion,” Emma says, rolling her eyes. “Well done.”

 

To be honest, she’s actually a bit embarrassed because she and Ruby used to call Regina Mills that and it seems as though the nickname has stuck ten years down the track.

 

*

 

“Emma, you have a visitor.” It was her foster mom, Mary Margaret. She was cooler than most and Emma had been there for two years now; she’d just about stopped worrying that she was going to get sent back to the group home in Boston, until now.

 

“I’m sick,” Emma mumbled. After throwing up in front of Ms Mills and sobbing out the whole sordid story, she’d gone to the sickbay and hadn’t returned to school, telling Ruby she had a virus.

 

“It’s your English teacher.” There was a hint of nervousness in Mary Margaret’s voice. “She’s brought around your homework.”

 

Shit. Emma straightened up, pulled a sweater on over her grubby tank top and scraped her lank hair back into a ponytail. When she made her way downstairs in the loft apartment, Ms Mills sat at the kitchen table, cup of tea steaming in front of her, her elegant attire incongruous in the shabby loft. “Do you want a tea?” Mary Margaret asked Emma.

 

“No,” she said. She went to the fridge and poured herself a ginger beer. Mary Margaret bought it for her because she reckoned it helps upset stomachs and it wasn't the worst thing in the world.

 

“I’ve got to get to the hospital,” Mary Margaret said. She volunteered a couple of days a week. Emma reckoned she had a bit of a crush on one of the doctors but Mary Margaret denied it of course. “There’s leftover pasta bake in the fridge. Heat it up if you start feeling hungry.”

 

“Thanks,” Emma said. “See you later.”

 

She sat down across from Ms Mills, resting her elbows on the table. She’d obviously come straight from work, long dark hair coiled back into a chignon, shirt collars stiff and legs crossed in black slacks. Emma tried not to stare too openly at the top button on her shirt, the button straining. “So, Ms Swan,” Ms Mills said. “What are you going to do?”

 

“I don’t know,” Emma mumbled. She hadn’t really been able to think about it. She was barely three months along; she could still get an abortion but the nearest clinic was Portland and she had no way of getting there and no money to pay for it if she did get there.

 

“Have you told Miss Blanchard?” Ms Mills asked. Her lip curled when she said Emma’s foster mom’s name and Emma wondered if there was a story there though she wasn't sure what it could possibly be.

 

Emma bit at the inside of her lip, tasting blood. “She’ll send me back.”

 

“No, she won’t.”

 

“Have you ever been in the system?” Emma asked and Ms Mills shook her head. “Then you don’t have a fucking clue, do you?”

 

“I know Mary Margaret Blanchard well enough,” Ms Mills said. “She’s never met a sad puppy she doesn’t want to cuddle.” She stood, leaving a stack of papers on the kitchen table. “Your homework, Ms Swan. I wouldn’t want you to fall behind.”

 

“No,” Emma muttered. “Of course not.”

 

*

 

At the end of her second week at Storybrooke High, instead of returning to the loft for some of Mary Margaret’s spicy pumpkin soup and discussions of treatment plans and radiation, Emma goes to Granny’s diner, now managed by Ruby, and orders the largest, greasiest burger on the menu. The honeymoon phase is well and truly over; she’s taught at tougher schools over the past five years but as with any teaching jobs there are days when it’s awesome and days when it just plain sucks. Today her final period freshman class decided to throw hunks of glue stick at each other. A chunk got in her hair and one of her curls is now welded together.

 

“You all good?” Ruby asks.

 

“Exhausted,” Emma says, lifting her head from her hands and grimacing at her. “Burger, extra fries, please.”

 

“And a milkshake?”

 

“Chocolate.”

 

“The evil queen riding you hard?” Ruby asks, red lips curving into a smirk.

 

Emma blushes at the phrasing and wishes she’d never drunkenly admitted to a crush on Regina Mills back when she was in high school. “Shut up. Just a long week.” She pulls a pile of marking out of her bag and gets to work, not caring that she’s taking up a booth during peak time or that red ink is now flecked and dotted across her hands.

 

“Ms Swan?” It’s Regina Mills. And her son. The reason Emma left Storybrooke and didn’t return for ten years. He’s cute, brown hair falling into his eyes, a pointed chin and round, babyish cheeks.

 

“Hey, kid,” she says, pushing blonde curls out of her eyes, hoping she hasn’t now smudged ink across her face. “You must be Henry. Your mom’s told me heaps about you.” She had, after a fashion. Emails sent regularly those first couple of years. A postcard sent to her dorm room when they went on a holiday to the beach.

 

_Henry has started moving, Ms Swan. I wouldn’t call it walking, more of a stumble-run. He has bruises all over his head because he has no spatial awareness and keeps running into chairs and bookshelves and doors and other people’s calves._

_Today he said his first words. I was hoping for ‘Mama’ but he said ‘Cute’, probably because too many people tell him how very cute he is. Daniel is convinced he’s going to be absolutely spoilt rotten by the time he’s two._

_There is something so wonderfully_ right _about babies, Ms Swan. He smells so good, like soap and milk and freshly mowed grass (all of Henry’s clothes have grass stains because Daniel doesn’t believe in quiet play) and when he grins toothily up at me or snuggles into my chest when I read him a story I am so very, very grateful to have him in my life._

 

Just after Henry turned two (and Emma got drunk and slept with her college roommate on his second birthday because she didn’t want to remember) the emails stopped. Emma wondered if it was because she never replied, though she always clicked the received message button Regina sent along with the emails.

 

Eventually, Ruby had mentioned in one of their fortnightly skype sessions that Daniel Mills had died in the mayoral office blaze. The perils of being a firefighter. Emma had contemplated coming home, had crafted dozens of emails that still sit in the drafts folder of her Gmail account, had lingered by the sympathy cards in the pharmacy when she went to pick up tampons, but couldn’t. And then time passed and it became harder and harder and so Emma did everything she could to just forget.

 

“Hi,” Henry says politely, his voice high and light. “Mom?”

 

“This is Emma Swan,” Regina says, whole body tense. “She’s the new English teacher at my school.”

 

“Oh,” Henry says and then his face brightens with recognition. “You’re Miss Blanchard’s daughter, aren’t you? How is she?”

 

“Foster daughter,” Emma corrects and adds, “she’s doing pretty well, kid.” She’d forgotten Mary Margaret taught Henry Mills B.C. Before Cancer. “She misses you guys.”

 

Henry beams and Regina’s eyes soften when she looks at her son and Emma thinks she spots a glimmer of a smile. “Perhaps you could make her a card, Henry. Let’s leave Ms Swan to her marking.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Henry says. And Emma’s heart breaks a little. They’ve met before, of course, after a fashion, though Henry was far too young to remember.

 

No one remembers their own birth, after all.

 

*

 

She looked up Ms Mills’ address in the phone book. She lived on Mifflin Street, which was a fancier area of town than teachers normally live. Mary Margaret was a teacher and she lived in an old loft apartment in a dodgy area of Storybrooke.

 

It was six o’clock and she brought her hand forward to knock again. It had been a week of being the last to arrive in English and the first to leave, a week of avoiding eye contact and hoping Ms Mills wouldn’t call on her or ask to see her after class. But now she was standing on the porch of this massive mansion of a house and Ms Mills or her husband (fiancé? boyfriend?) must have serious money to afford this because there’s no way a teacher could own even a small section of this place. She’d brought a hand up to knock several times before bringing the clenched fist back to her side each time.

 

“You all right there, kid?” A man’s voice. He was coming up the steps behind her, his steps long and confident. It was the guy from the photo on Ms Mills’ desk and Emma felt this utterly irrational surge of jealousy.

 

“Yeah,” Emma said, scuffing her toe against the porch. “I’m here to see Ms Mills.”

 

“Well, come on in,” he said, guiding her into the house. “Reggie, we’ve got company,” he yelled from the door, shucking off heavy work boots and stacking them neatly on the shoe rack. “I’m Daniel, by the way,” he added, holding out a hand. “Reggie’s husband.”

 

“Emma,” Emma said, taking it. His hands were large and the skin of them was rough and there were faded pink scars across the backs of his hands, like burns. A gold wedding band adorned his ring finger.

 

Ms Mills appeared in the hall, dressed in leggings and a loose sweater, make up washed from her face and a smudge of ink down one cheek. Without her teaching garb, she looked younger, barely older than Emma. “Ms Swan,” she said, and there was actually a hint of a smile on her lips, and Emma was confused because this woman looked nothing like the hard-ass teacher with whom she'd become so familiar. “Do you want to talk?”

 

“Yeah,” Emma murmured.

 

“Staying for dinner, kid?” Daniel asked. “I made a lasagne yesterday but it’ll still be good. Reggie here can’t cook to save her life.”

 

Ms Mills shoved him, but she was smiling and he kissed her forehead and tugged at the end of her braid. “I guess, if that’s okay,” Emma said, looking at Ms Mills.

 

“Not a problem,” she said and Emma, who’s always been good at picking liars, heard the truth in her words. So Emma sent Mary Margaret a quick text to let her know she’d be late home and Ms Mills led her into a study. There were papers strewn across the desk and Emma spotted her own scrawl poking out from midway through the pile from the latest in class essay test. “So,” she said. “What did you need to talk about?”

 

“I told Mary Margaret,” she said. “She’s not sending me away.”

 

Mary Margaret had cried a lot and Emma had cried too and she’d wanted to know who the father was. “He has to take responsibility,” she’d said, vehement. But Emma wouldn’t tell her about Neal. Even Ms Mills didn’t know about him and Emma had told her pretty much everything else.

 

Ms Mills smiled and her eyes narrowed, crinkling at the corners. “What did I tell you?”

 

“I don’t want to keep it,” Emma said. There was the faintest of bumps on her stomach and when she was alone in her room, she stroked her fingers across her stomach. One night she'd clawed at the skin of her stomach until her fingernails had drawn blood in thin, red lines.

 

Ms Mills frowned at the papers on her desk, hands clasping a pen and fiddling with it. Her eyes were pained. “Abortion?”

 

“No,” Emma said. “I think I want to adopt it out. I’m just scared.” Because she couldn’t help but feel like she was doing the same thing to the kid as was done to her, abandoned at birth on the side of a Maine highway. It wasn't the same, she knew that; she had to give the kid its best chance and that was definitely not with her.

 

“That’s natural, Emma,” Ms Mills said. Emma didn’t miss the hungry flash of light in her eyes when the word ‘adoption’ was said and she filed it away for later. “You know the school will not be happy.”

 

“I know,” Emma said. Last year, this girl Ashley got pregnant and the school kicked her out. She did odd jobs at the diner now while studying for her GED, carting little baby Alex around with her because Granny might pretend to be a hard-ass but she was really an old softie.

 

Daniel Mills poked his head around the door. “Food’s up,” he said and Emma watched Ms Mills’ face soften once more. She had always been gorgeous in a frightening sort of way, but this was the first time Emma had seen her look pretty.

 

Emma left the Mills household later that evening, belly full, a reluctant smile curled across her face and a bit of a crush on both of the Millses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to know what you think. My knowledge of schools is not American so probably there will be inaccuracies - just pretend Storybrooke has a weird education system.
> 
> I hope I'll be able to update this reliably. Busy week coming up, but I have the whole thing planned.
> 
> Title from 'To Sir With Love' by Lulu.  
> Chapter Titles will all be songs about schools, because why not stick to a theme?


	2. Beauty School Dropout

Emma is tutoring during her lunch break. Alicia is one of her smartest sophomores, held back in English because of a potent combination of dyslexia and the fact that her family speaks primarily Spanish at home. She’s missed a week of class because of some fight. Emma doesn’t know the details but she also doesn’t want Alicia to end up in summer school. “Why do I even need this, Miss?” Alicia asks, grimacing at the short story they’ve been reading for class, the type face small because Emma needed to be able to cram it onto one double-sided A4 to be able to photocopy it.

 

“Because,” Emma says and then stops because she could spout all the bullshit about English being important for her future and literacy being the key to success, which is all true, but not real and not exactly relevant to Alicia right now. “Sometimes we find the story that speaks to our souls and unless we read everything, we’ll never have that moment.”

 

Alicia snorts. “Cheesy much?” But she starts to read the opening paragraphs aloud, English halting. Emma’s making them read ‘The Lottery’ because she loves the reaction the kids have to ending and the discussions it provokes about mob mentality and tradition. It’s a challenging read for Alicia though and Emma can tell she’s not totally into the story.

 

She looks up, checking the clock, and she sees Regina standing in the doorway of her classroom, watching them. “Alicia, carry on by yourself for a moment,” she says. Alicia falters when she notices Regina but she does as Emma asks, mouth moving silently as she scans the words.

 

“I need to meet with you after school,” Regina says.

 

“About?” Emma asks.

 

“My son.” Regina shifts from one foot to the other. Her arms are crossed and the fingers from one hand tap a rhythm on her arm.

 

“Hey, Ms Swan.” Alicia stands, stuffing the short story in her backpack. “I need to go and talk to coach about softball. I’ll finish reading it tonight.”

 

“One sec,” Emma says, moving to the battered bookshelf she purloined from the basement of the school and re-painted scarlet, and fumbles through books on her shelf until she finds it. She hands Alicia ‘The House on Mango Street’. “I reckon this could be your soul story,” she says and Alicia smiles.

 

“Is it because the writer’s Mexican?” she asks, turning over to read the blurb. “You know I’m Puerto Rican, right? We’re not all the same.”

 

Emma blushes. “Of course I do,” she says. “I’m sorry that…”

 

“Just messing with you,” Alicia interrupts, grinning. “I’m allowed to do that, right, Ms Mills?”

 

“Quite, dear,” Regina says and gifts Alicia with the rarest of smiles, though admittedly it’s tight-lipped and she remains rigid and tense.

 

“So, what’s your soul story, Miss?” Alicia asks, imbuing the words ‘soul story’ with so much sarcasm Emma wishes she’d stuck with the ‘literacy and careers’ spiel, slinging her bag over her shoulder and turning back to Emma.

 

“Jane Eyre,” Emma says and meets Regina’s eyes, which widen imperceptibly.

 

*

 

Emma’s belly popped early. She covered it with baggy sweaters, empire lines and any other dodgy fashion choices she thought might work but, inevitably, the whispers started.

 

It took until her fifth month before she heard someone comment on it. “Emma Swan’s totally pregnant.” She heard the whisper follow her down the corridor.

 

“I heard it was that older guy she was dating,” another voice said, this one not even bothering to keep her voice down. “You know, the one that got caught stealing those watches. Neal something.”

 

“If she’d do him, she’d do anyone,” the first girl responded. “It could be anyone’s. What a slut.”

 

Emma whirled around. Of course it was Mallory Blake and her acolytes; the blonde lacrosse player lived in the largest house in Storybrooke and oozed privilege from her very pores. “You wanna say that again?” Emma snarled, fists balling at her sides.

 

Mallory looked at her, blue eyes cold as ice, and slowly, deliberately, said, “you’re a slut, Emma Swan.”

 

And so Emma punched her in the nose. Not her finest hour, she thought, sitting outside the principal’s office with an ice pack on her knuckles, though the crack of Mallory’s nose breaking had been satisfying. Mallory had been escorted to the hospital an hour ago by an irate father. Emma had to wait until Mary Margaret finished teaching for the day before she could be seen. She spent the time trying to read ‘Wuthering Heights’. Ms Mills had set it for English and Emma was fucking loathing it.

 

The final school bell rang and crowds streamed past. Her back ached, the extra weight causing her discomfort, not helped by the hideously uncomfortable chair she’d been seated in outside Gold’s office. She rubbed at her back, ignoring the dirty look the secretary gave her when her belly stuck out further.

 

“Emma.” Mary Margaret arrived; face pink and the bangs of her short hair sticking to her forehead. She’d obviously run over and Emma felt horribly, impossibly guilty. “What happened?”

 

“I’m so sorry,” she said, lump forming in her throat and constricting her words.

 

“Mr Gold will see you now,” his snotty secretary said, gesturing at the closed door and they walked in.

 

“Miss Blanchard,” Gold said, standing and holding out a hand. “How lovely to see you again. What a pity it can’t be under better circumstances. Do take a seat.” The Scottish brogue was out in full force and Emma noted the walking stick, varnished wood and gold tipped, leaning against his desk. She’d seen him rely on it in assemblies and patrolling the school corridors but, rather than make him seem weak, it created an air of menace.

 

“What happened?” Mary Margaret demanded, still standing. Emma had never seen her like this before – fierce, proud, protective – and felt a swell of emotion rise up in her.

 

“Emma punched another student, apparently unprovoked,” Gold said. Emma could have told them why but didn’t; the fact that she’d let herself be provoked – and by Mallory Drake no less – embarrassed her. “I’m afraid that given the circumstances the school board will be recommending expulsion.”

 

“Circumstances?” Mary Margaret asked. The redness of her face had receded but for two blotches of scarlet high in her cheeks.

 

“Well, it’s not a first offence, is it?” Gold asked and Emma nodded. She’d been in a couple of fights before now – one resulting in a three day in school suspension. She never started them but she also wasn’t great at walking away, letting it go. “And to add to that, there have been murmurs about the pregnancy…”

 

“I will not have you do to Emma what you did to Ashley Boyd,” Mary Margaret said, an edge to her voice. “It’s abhorrent. Do we live in the 1800s?”

 

“According to some members of the school board we do,” Gold said, lips twisting into a grimace. “These conversations have already been happening, even before today’s incident. I’m afraid there is little I can do.”

 

“We will fight this,” Mary Margaret said.

 

“I’m sure you will,” Gold replied. “I’m afraid it will likely be quite useless.”

 

Emma was suspended until the board met to decide her fate. Mary Margaret spent a great deal of time on the phone to Emma’s social worker and, surprisingly, Ms Mills, who hadn’t been around when Ashley had been kicked out and was outraged. “And what happens to the boy in this scenario?” she’d asked Mary Margaret, the tension Emma had noticed between them dissipating in the momentary truce.

 

“It would be easier if Emma would tell anyone who he was,” Mary Margaret said wryly.

 

After the board meeting, which Emma didn’t attend, Mary Margaret returned to the loft, an exhausted slump in her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Emma,” she said. “We tried.”

 

Emma’s walls were up. “It’s fine,” she said. “No big deal.” She wondered briefly if Mary Margaret would kick her out now, or wait until morning.

 

“You will continue your education,” Mary Margaret said. “You’ll go to college.”

 

“How?” Emma asked, tired.

 

“You’ll study from home for your GED,” she said. “I’ll tutor you in math and science. On Sundays, you will go to Regina Mills’ home and she will go through your English and social science programmes with you.”

 

Emma felt her lips flicker up. “Ms Mills said she’d do that?”

 

“Yes,” Mary Margaret said. “She seems quite taken with you. She gave me this. It’s your homework this week.” She handed Emma a book.

 

Emma looked at the cover and groaned inwardly. Another Bronte. Cracking the cover, she found a post-it note from Ms Mills in her tidy, rounded script. _Since Wuthering Heights is clearly not to your taste, I hope you appreciate Jane Eyre more._

 

When Mary Margaret knocked on the door to wish Emma a good night, she was reading and sobbing over the fate of orphaned Jane at Lowood House.

 

*

 

“So,” Emma says, busting into Regina’s classroom and perching on the end of a student’s desk. It’s four o’clock and the school is eerily silent. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

 

“Can you not sit on the desk, Ms Swan?” Regina asks, impatient and snappy. Her short hair flicks out at the ends and her collar is starched, pointed and sharp. She still leaves one button too many loose and Emma’s eye is still drawn to it.

 

“Sorry,” Emma says, pulling up a chair.

 

“Henry has decided he wants to know who his birth mother is,” Regina says and Emma feels the world spin, heart pounding violently. She should have expected this; she’s almost surprised Henry doesn’t already know. Perhaps it had been naïve to think she could come back to Storybrooke and not deal with this. “Ms Swan?”

 

“Yes? What?” Her chest feels constricted, too tight and almost bruised. Her breathing becomes more rapid.

 

“Given your current proximity, I thought I would let you know that I intend to tell him the whole story this evening,” she says. “If I know my son, I expect he will want to speak to you. Ultimately, speaking to him is, of course, your decision.”

 

“Of course,” Emma says. She doesn’t even know what she’s agreeing to; she could be selling her soul for all she’s taken in of what Regina’s said. “Thanks for letting me know.” She remains seated, hands clenched to the metal frame of the seat.

 

Regina looks over at her, from across a pile of marking. “That was all. You can go,” she says.

 

Emma pauses in the doorway. “I was really sorry to hear about Mr Mills,” she says. “I know it’s eight years too late.”

 

“Your sympathies would hardly have brought him back,” Regina says, though her hand grips the red pen more tightly. “I’m very busy, Ms Swan, so if there’s no more meaningless…” Emma leaves.

 

She’s supposed to stay and do her own marking – it’s piling up and her freshmen are starting to get antsy about when they’re getting their creative writing back – but she’s no longer in the right headspace. Instead, she returns to the loft. Mary Margaret’s making soup, again. She can smell the seafood chowder from the stairwell. “Emma, darling,” Mary Margaret says. “How was school?”

 

“Sit down,” Emma says gruffly because her foster mom’s swaying on her feet. Emma’s struck by the fragility of her wrists and the sudden appearance of cheekbones where there were once rounded cheeks; she’s always been small and the chemo’s made her lose weight she couldn’t afford to lose in the first place.

 

Mary Margaret settles onto the couch and Emma throws a blanket across her knees. “Stop fussing, Emma,” she says.

 

“Stop trying to do too much then,” Emma replies. “The doctor says that you should be resting.”

 

“Making soup is hardly strenuous,” Mary Margaret says, though she rests her head against a cushion and closes her eyes. “You worry too much. I’m fine.” She’s an eternal optimist, talking blithely about the future, about how she and Emma should travel (she’s always wanted to go to Paris), searching for nice young men Emma can date, making sly hints about weddings… But Emma knows she’s dying. The growth’s behind her breastbone and they can’t cut it out and all that they can hope for is that chemo and radiation and the fucking vegetable juices with which Mary Margaret has become obsessed slow the spread.

 

Emma finishes the soup, makes Mary Margaret eat a bowl with two pieces of crusty bread and puts their bowls in the sink. The TV’s playing softly in the background and Emma’s calm enough now to grade papers. It’s nearly nine when there’s a knock at the door. “You expecting David?” Emma asks, because in outstanding timing perpetually single Mary Margaret has a boyfriend, the new deputy sheriff.

 

“No,” she says, puzzled. “He’s on nights this week.”

 

Emma goes to the door. Henry Mills. “Shit,” she says.

 

“Yeah.” The boy looks up at her, his mannerisms resembling Regina, from the set to his jaw to the fingers wriggling and twisting with nerves, but his appearance is all Emma and Neal.

 

“Isn’t it, like, past your bedtime?” Emma asks.

 

“Yeah,” he says again. He’s scuffing one foot against the frame of the door and _that_ gesture is pure Emma.

 

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

 

Henry squirms at this question and mumbles, “no.”

 

“Shit,” Emma says again. “Mary Margaret, I’m going out.” She grabs her coat and keys and steers the boy to her car. He hops into the front seat without a fight, observing the takeaway coffee cups and piles of school crap with detached interest.

 

“So,” he says, as she starts the engine. “You gave birth to me?”

 

“Yeah,” Emma says, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes boring into the road ahead.

 

“Okay,” he says. Silence. Then, he says, “can you roll your tongue?”

 

Emma looks over at him. “What?”

 

“I can,” he says. “Mom can’t. Did I get it from you?”

 

Emma pokes out her tongue, letting the edges curl up to form a tube. “I guess you did. You’re taking this remarkably well, apart from, you know, running away.”

 

“Better than you’re taking it,” he observes. “I was kind of angry when I started walking but you live really far away.” They pull into Mifflin Street. Every light in Regina’s house is on. “Crap,” Henry mutters.

 

Emma pulls into the driveway. “Get out,” she says. “Your mom is going to kill me.”

 

“Nah,” Henry says. “She likes you.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out. Emma follows him up the steps. Before they reach the door, it opens and Regina rushes out. Emma can see the marks tears have left, her eyes red-rimmed and dark eye makeup smudged.

 

“Henry.” She wraps her arms around him and the absolute love radiating from her makes Emma well up. “What were you thinking?”

 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I just had to see her. I’m going to bed. Night, Mom. G’night, Emma.” He slips past his mother and into the house.

 

“He just showed up,” Emma says, shrugging. “I didn’t…”

 

“I know,” Regina says. She sounds exhausted. “It’s Henry. He does this sometimes. Normally during the day though. Thank you for bringing him straight back.”

 

“I was hardly going to abscond with him,” Emma says, trying to make light of the situation, but when she meets Regina’s eyes she sees that’s exactly what she thought would happen. “Hey,” Emma says, bridging the gap and clasping her hand. The skin is soft and her hands are ice. “He’s your son. No one can take him away from you.”

 

“I know,” Regina snaps, but she moves forward and pulls Emma into an awkward sort of embrace. She can feel Regina’s shoulders shaking with the effort not to cry and Emma lets out a strangled sob because it’s all too much, all of it. She can’t want this.

 

*

 

It took Emma six days to read ‘Jane Eyre’, letting the workbook tasks for her GED pile up as she did so. She cried three times: at Lowood house, when Jane drew Blanche Ingram and compared herself unfavourably to the snooty rich girl, and when she left Thornfield and the closest thing to family she had ever had. It all struck too close to the bone and it sort of astonished her that some eighteenth century Victorian novelist could do that, could make her connect to the character so much.

 

She turned up at Ms Mills’ home on the Sunday, book clasped in one hand and school bag over her shoulder. Mr Mills answered the door. “Hey, kid,” he said, stepping aside to let her in. “How’s the bean?”

 

“I’m pretty pregnant,” Emma said, raising her eyebrows and kicking off her sneakers, using her foot to manoeuvre them tidily to the side in the hallway because bending down took too much energy these days. “I’m hardly a kid.”

 

“Don’t even try,” Ms Mills said, coming into the hall. “I’ve been asking him to stop calling me ‘Reggie’ since junior high.”

 

“Hasn’t managed it yet,” he said, kissing her cheek. The easy affection between the pair comforted her. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

 

If Emma had hoped Ms Mills might go easy on her, she was wrong. “Sit,” she said, gesturing at the table in her study. Emma sat.

 

“So, ‘Jane Eyre’,” she said. “Was it supposed to emotionally traumatise me?”

 

“Re-read chapter twelve and answer the questions,” she said, putting a sheet of questions in front of Emma. “And I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Emma completed the questions and handed them to Ms Mills who frowned at her handwriting. “I can hardly read this chicken scratch,” she muttered. “This answer about gender roles is sound. I’m less convinced that you understand foreshadowing.”

 

“How will this help me for the GED?” Emma asked. She’d read the workbooks Mary Margaret had bought her and it looked like she’d be responding to random extracts of texts, not writing about actual literature.

 

“Does it matter?” Ms Mills asked. “I mean, I could just power through the workbook with you but I suspect that would bore us both senseless. Now, given her own childhood experiences, do you think Charlotte Bronte was able to remain objective in describing Thornfield?”

 

Three hours later, Mr Mills knocked on the door. “Want some lunch?”

 

“We’ll break for thirty minutes,” Ms Mills said, closing her copy of ‘Jane Eyre’ and standing. Emma stood and stretched, an ache forming at her lower back. “After lunch we’ll work on social studies.”

 

Emma followed Mr Mills into the kitchen and collapsed melodramatically at the kitchen table. “She’s evil,” she said to Mr Mills, who poured her an orange juice and handed her a chicken salad sandwich, “your wife. She’s totally sadistic.”

 

He grinned. “That’s my Reggie.”

 

“I’ll thank you not to call me that again,” Ms Mills said, though she smiled as she said it. “I need to maintain some authority in front of my student.”

 

“Just a tip,” Emma said around a mouthful of sandwich. “Maybe discussing this away from said student would be more appropriate.”

 

“Pay no attention to the student behind the curtain,” Mr Mills said, holding a tea towel up in front of her face. Emma batted it away. “So, Reggie,” he continued. “Is the student working hard?”

 

“Harder than she worked in my class when she attended high school,” Ms Mills said, though she sounded almost fond and rested her head on Mr Mills’ shoulder, letting him run his hands through her hair.

 

Emma watched the pair of them. “You’ll be great parents one day,” she said.

 

Ms Mills’ face froze and she shrugged away from her husband. “I’m going to prepare for the afternoon,” she said. “Come through when you’re finished.”

 

Emma looked over at Mr Mills. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you guys.”

 

Mr Mills sighed. “Oh, kid,” he said. “It’s not your fault. We can’t have children.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, voice small. “I didn’t know.”

 

“Of course you didn’t,” he said. But Emma couldn’t help but think that she should have known better, could have done better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the feedback on the first chapter. 
> 
> 1\. I've fixed some things up with tenses to hopefully signpost the shift in time frames more clearly - both time frames run chronologically and alternate. I hope it's not too confusing. 
> 
> 2\. This will continue to be very much vignette-style; apologies if that isn't your thing.
> 
> 3\. Any issues re: my understanding of GED, American school system, I apologise. Let's just pretend Storybrooke operates on a system of its own.
> 
> 4\. Finally, this is so not the end for Henry dealing with Emma.


	3. Expectations

Emma avoids Regina as much as possible over the coming weeks, which is difficult when she’s her head of faculty. Somehow she manages it, seeing Regina only at staff and department meetings, where she sits at the other end of the table, engages anyone around her in conversation and leaves abruptly as everyone else is still packing up.

 

She doesn’t realise that Regina notices that she’s pulling the same shit she pulled back in high school until Regina corners her in the English resource room. “Emma Swan, are you pregnant again?”

 

“What?” Emma asks, genuinely puzzled. She peers down at her stomach, wondering if that last beer claw had that much of an effect.

 

“When you were seventeen,” Regina says. “You attempted the exact same ‘sidling out of the room’ tactics you’re trying now to avoid me.”

 

Oh. She shuffles sideways, into one of the aisles of books. “Habit,” she says. “Sorry.” She grabs a copy of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. She’s thinking about teaching it to her sophomores next semester but she hasn’t read it since she was fifteen and she’s hazy on the details.

 

“The avoidance is because of Henry, I presume?” Regina asks.

 

“Yeah,” Emma says because that’s the easier answer. It’s part of the truth but there’s also that part of her that’s a bit in love with Regina and has been since high school and now that they’re colleagues it scares the shit out of her.

 

“He wants to get to know you,” Regina says. “He has questions. A lot of them. I believe he is making a list. The longer you leave it, the more you’ll have to deal with.” She looks tired, dark circles under her eyes barely hidden by concealer and she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.

 

“I’ll think about it,” Emma says.

 

“Please do,” Regina says. “I’ve volunteered you to supervise the Miner’s Day dance, by the way.”

 

“What?” Emma hates Miner’s Day. It’s a stupid tradition. She hates the nuns and the candles Mary Margaret is insisting on going door to door selling even though she really shouldn’t be out in the cold because she’s just started a round of chemo and it makes her vulnerable and Emma did not come back to Storybrooke to look after her just so she could do stupid shit like that.

 

“In your efforts to avoid me, you didn’t listen at yesterday’s briefing.” Regina’s lips curve into a wicked smirk; it’s not quite a smile but Emma’s willing to take it as a step in the right direction.

 

So instead of spending Friday night watching ‘Kate and Leopold’ for the eightieth time with Mary Margaret after she’s sold her candles or going to get a drink with Ruby at the one bar in town, Emma finds herself standing against the wall in the school gymnasium, bored out of her brain as kids dance and mooch about and flirt.

 

She looks across the gym and sees Regina, chatting with Robin Locksley, one of the gym teachers; her old gym teacher, in fact, then newly married and ‘totally dreamy’. There’s still something of the dreamboat about him. He’s now a widower and a single father, and Emma imagines there must be something appealing for Regina in that but she can’t help but feel the sharp stab of jealousy in the pit of her stomach and something akin to possessiveness. Regina is hers.

 

She weaves her way across the floor, the low heel of her boot clacking against the polished wooden floors. One of her boys waves her down and tries to dance with her but she laughs at him and keeps walking.

 

“Hey,” she says, loudly because the bass is thumping so loudly she can barely hear herself think let alone talk. Regina simply raises an eyebrow at her but Robin smiles, white teeth glowing in the dim.

 

“Enjoying yourself?” Robin asks.

 

She shrugs. “Didn’t like these things much the first time round. Can’t say I like them much more as a teacher.”

 

“No,” Robin shouts. “You were rather a lone wolf at high school.”

 

“See this,” Emma says. “This is why I didn’t want to come back and teach at my old high school.” It’s all the same staff and the number of them who have made comments about her when she was at high school or expressed surprise that she’s made something of herself as started to irritate her.

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “I feel I should patrol the corridors,” she says. “You’ll accompany me, Ms Swan.”

 

Emma just nods and follows her.

 

*

 

“610,” Regina said, looking up at Emma from the test paper, marked in red. “You’ll do well in the language arts section at least. Good to see you finally using that brain of yours.”

 

“If it was just language arts I could sit the GED tomorrow,” Emma said. “It’s math and science that’s getting me.” She groaned. She was running out of time, only ten weeks until her due date. She’d had to give up her jeans entirely and was rather embarrassed by the constant sweat pants she was wearing – though not so much as to wear the dresses Mary Margaret had found.

 

“Have you sent off your college applications?” Regina asked.

 

“Of course,” Emma said. She didn’t hold much hope, despite decent SAT scores last year, though there was always community college or getting a job, though Mary Margaret wouldn’t hear of it. She kept insisting that Emma would make something of herself.

 

“You’ll get in somewhere,” Regina said.

 

“And then I’ll just have to work out how to pay for it,” Emma said, frowning.

 

Regina let out a huff of air. “And how are you, Ms Swan?”

 

“Fine,” Emma said.

 

“Oh?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“I’m sure you are, dear. You’re seventeen, pregnant, alone in the world…”

 

“I’m not alone,” Emma said, the words bursting out. “I have Mary Margaret. And you.”

 

Regina smiled. “You’re a sweetheart.” She scrunched her nose and seemed to come to a decision. “I think it’s time for a break.” She led Emma to the kitchen, cut her a slice of apple turnover (“I made this,” she said. “Daniel may be the chef, but I do the desserts”) and poured her a juice. “Eat.”

 

Emma ate, pastry crumbling off her fork and icing sugar dusting her lips. “This is amazing,” she said, around a mouthful of food, and then blushed, cheeks hot, because what must Regina think of her manners?

 

“Thank you,” Regina said, resting her elbows on the table and watching Emma.

 

“Where did you go to college?” Emma asked.

 

“Brown,” Regina said. “For my undergraduate, anyway. I did my certification and a master’s in education at Boston University.”

 

“And Mr Mills?”

 

“He didn’t go to college,” she said. “Daniel’s the hands on type.” She smiled again. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. We started dating at high school. All secret, of course. My mother would never have approved. Daniel followed me to Providence, worked odd jobs, in the stables at a country club, at coffee shops and bars, whatever would support us.”

 

“Why wouldn’t your mother have approved?” Emma asked. Then, “sorry, it’s none of my business.”

 

Regina shrugged. “I don’t mind. It’s no secret. If you’d grown up in Storybrooke you’d know all about my mother. Daniel’s father was a mechanic. He’s done nothing to increase my social standing. Mother wanted me to be a lawyer, possibly go into politics.” She grimaced. “I’ve never been interested in power.”

 

“All teachers are interested in power,” Emma said.

 

Regina laughed. “Very true.” She looked around the kitchen at the gleaming chrome appliances, the marble counter tops, the damasked wall paper… “This is my family home so you can imagine that my lifestyle was rather different from his; we’re only living here until we can sell it and build our own place.”

 

Emma nodded. “Thank you for telling me that.”

 

“I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t happy for you to know.”

 

Emma sat in silence for a time, one wetted finger sliding through the crumbs on her plate, licking them up. “His name was Neal,” she said eventually.

 

Regina nodded, seeming to know immediately what Emma was talking about. “I did wonder. Gold’s son?”

 

“Mmm,” Emma said. “Estranged. He never talked about his dad but he loved his mom.”

 

“It’s probably borderline inappropriate you telling me all this,” Regina said.

 

“Already been expelled,” Emma said. “I need to tell someone who’ll keep it quiet. Mary Margaret will tell someone. She’ll think she’s helping.”

 

“Very well,” Regina said, leaning back in her chair. The cold winter light filtered through the wooden venetians in the kitchen, creating a glossy sheen in her dark hair.

 

So Emma told her about Neal. Told her about the sweet man who broke into fairgrounds for her just so she could go on a merry go round, about the petty theft, the road trips to Portland and Orono, where he’d meet dodgy people in bars and Emma would wait in the car. She told her that he said he loved her but she wasn’t so sure. “And then the idiot got himself arrested,” she said. “I was supposed to be there with him but I had an English essay due.”

 

Regina smirked. “So an English essay saved your life.”

 

“Well, it stopped me going to prison anyhow,” Emma said. “I’m still knocked up and expelled.”

 

Regina, as she always did, looked sad when Emma mentioned her pregnancies. It’s not like it was hard to spot; the rounded swell of her stomach couldn’t be hidden by the baggiest of tee-shirts. She felt the baby kick. Mr Mills had started calling it the bean and she found she rather liked it.

 

“It’s kicking,” she said, resting a hand on her stomach. “Well, more standing on my bladder really.” Ms Mills’s hand twitched. “You can touch if you want,” Emma said.

 

“Really inappropriate,” Ms Mills said though her hand reached out seemingly in spite of itself and rested delicately against her stomach. The bean kicked out and Regina started, before a smile spread across her face. “I want this,” she murmured, so low Emma almost didn’t catch it.

 

And Emma so wanted to give it to her.

 

*

 

The school corridors are dark and silent; the only sound the sharp click of Regina and Emma’s shoes against the linoleum. Moonlight filters through the windows, hitting the lockers and glancing off. Regina’s face is shrouded in shadow, lit like a femme fatale in a noir film.

 

Emma trails her fingers along the lockers, feeling the cold metal under her fingertips. “So,” she says, glancing over at her. “You and Locksley?”

 

“Good friends,” Regina says firmly, though there’s a note of amusement in her tone.

 

“Okay,” Emma says. And then for some hideous, inconceivable reason, she adds, “good.”

 

Regina’s surprised laugh echoes down the empty corridor. “Still nursing that school girl crush?” she asks and Emma’s grateful for the darkness because her cheeks are burning and she’s wishing desperately for some sort of earthquake or zombie apocalypse to take the attention off her.

 

“You knew about that?” Emma asks when she feels steady enough to speak.

 

“Well, you’ve just now confirmed it,” Regina says. “I did wonder if it was…” She breaks off and Emma suspects she was about to talk about Daniel; she can feel her tense beside her.

 

“It was you,” she says softly. Regina stops and Emma turns to face her, stepping forward. Her eyes have adjusted to the light and she can see something in Regina’s face that isn’t unwelcoming, a softening of her jaw, the slight jut of her lower lip, mouth parted. “God, I liked you,” she says, the _still do really_ remaining unspoken in the air before them.

 

Regina’s hand jerks and she brings it forward, almost to Emma’s curls, and Emma wonders what would happen if she bridged the distance, let her lips fall onto Regina’s, let her hand curl into Regina’s cropped dark hair (it’s long in her fantasies because it was long when Emma was a student).

 

Giggling breaks the silence and then the sound of metal hitting linoleum and glass smashing. Emma leaps back and they both take off down the corridor. One of the trophy cases is knocked over and two juniors – Emma doesn’t know them beyond sight – stand staring in confusion at it. The boy is holding a hip flask. The girl is struggling back into her shirt. “Ms Wills,” Regina says, voice dripping chill and mask firmly back in place. “This _is_ a disappointment. And you, young man, I don’t believe we’ve met.” She holds out a hand and, meekly, the boy places the hipflask in it. She hands it to Emma, who takes a sniff (yup, definitely tequila) and screws the lid back on.

 

“Follow me,” Regina says, snapping her fingers, and the two students don’t even think of disobeying; they follow her to the office, Emma taking the rear.

 

They leave them with Gold – still principal after all this time and most displeased to be interrupted in his office – and return to the bookshelves. Regina hands her one end of some yellow tape and they rope the area off for the janitor to deal with.

 

Emma’s pretty confident the moment has well and truly gone when Regina grabs her arm, pushes her roughly against the lockers and kisses her, metal sliding against Emma's back. Her mouth is hard and desperate against Emma’s and she tastes of coffee and Emma doesn’t even try and stop her because, God, she has wanted this since she was seventeen and it’s finally happening.

 

“Wow,” Emma says when they break apart. Her eyelids flutter and he takes in a couple of deep breaths. Her face feels flushed and she wants more.

 

Regina frowns. “This can’t happen.”

 

“Oh,” Emma says, hunching up.

 

“I just – it’s not right.”

 

There’s so much Emma wants to say but words just aren’t forming. “Whatever,” she mumbles and she’s never felt more like a teenager before now. So, in further fulfilling that role, she turns to leave, a sulky tilt to her shoulders.

 

Regina grabs her hand, fingers gripping hers white-tight, and yanks her into the English resource room.

 

“So, can you maybe quit it with the rough handling?” Emma asks.

 

“Just sex,” Regina says, desperate. “Nothing more. I can’t handle anything more.”

 

“Okay,” Emma says, breathless, and she’s up against the wall of the English resource room and it’s everything she imagined and more.

 

*

 

“You really need to go back to the adoption agency,” Mary Margaret said, chopping up pumpkin for soup. She’d taken Emma into Portland the other week when the elementary school had a half day. Emma hadn’t liked it. The woman who had spoken to them was patronising, had avoided speaking to Emma at all, directing her questions and comments at Mary Margaret instead.

 

“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just…”

 

“What?”

 

“I know exactly who I want to adopt the bean,” she said. “I can’t just ask them though, can I?”

 

“Probably not,” Mary Margaret said, though she smiled at Emma in that infuriatingly knowing way of hers. “I don’t think Regina Mills would be offended if you asked her though.”

 

Emma chewed at the inside of her lip. “Yeah, maybe.” She knew they were looking to adopt; she’d seen the letter on Ms Mills’ desk the other month when she’d been left alone. She’d felt guilty for snooping but couldn’t quite resist when she’d seen the letter head. The letter hadn’t seemed promising, had suggested their youth and relative newness as a married couple would work against them, had talked about years, rather than months… But looking into adoption and wanting to adopt the child of some dropkick student you taught were two quite different things.

 

So she turned up on Saturday wearing a dress and hair braided down her back. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she wanted to make a decent impression. “Come in, Ms Swan,” Ms Mills said.

 

“Is Mr Mills here?” she asked. When Ms Mills nodded, Emma asked, “could I, like, speak to you both?”

 

“Daniel,” Ms Mills called out and he appeared from the kitchen, ragged university hoodie and paint coated jeans. He wiped his hands on his sweater, leaving a grease stain. “Ms Swan would like to speak with us.”

 

“What’s up, kid?” he asked. “Sorry about the mess. Cleaning the oven.”

 

“Can we sit down?” Emma asked. Ms Mills led her to a living room, elegantly furnished and a little intimidating. Emma perched on the edge of the couch, picking at the cuticles on her left hand. Ms and Mr Mills sat across from her. “So,” Emma said. “I want to thank you both for everything over the past few months.”

 

“Anytime, kid,” Mr Mills said. Ms Mills just nodded.

 

“This is really stupid,” she said, and took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking for a while and you don’t have to say yes and I won’t be surprised or anything but if you wanted to adopt the baby, you’d be my first choice of parents for it because I think you’re really great.” It all came out in an incoherent rush. She looked at her shoes and it was only when she hears a weird noise emitted from Ms Mills that she looked up.

 

Ms Mills was crying, strange, garbled sobs bursting from her mouth and tears streaming down her face. Mr Mills had an arm wrapped around her and she buried her face in his hoodie.

 

“Oh my God,” Emma said. “I’m so sorry. I’ll go.” She leapt up, grabbing her bag, and made a dash for the door, nearly tripping over the rug in her haste to leave.

 

“Kid, wait,” Mr Mills said, voice husky.

 

She turned. Ms Mills was standing, brown eyes shining and a tremulous smile on her lips. “Oh, Emma,” she said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just offered me?” And the next thing Emma knew she was enveloped tightly in her teacher’s arms, soft and warm and Emma, who hated hugs, wanted it to last forever.

 

The bean kicked and Ms Mills laughed, deep and husky. “It likes you,” Emma said.

 

“And we like it, kid,” Mr Mills said, reaching over to tug on the end of her braid and placing his hand on his wife’s back.

 

Emma looked back when she left later that day and saw them standing on the porch and they were kissing, arms wrapped around each other, and she knew she was giving the bean its best chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: 'Expectations' by Belle and Sebastian.


	4. When I Kissed the Teacher

Emma arrives at Regina’s on Sunday evening after dinner. Regina suggested it when she was rebuttoning her shirt over the lacy bra at the Miner’s Day dance. Emma wasn’t sure if she’d actually make it there; she’d changed her mind several times on the way over.

 

Still, she’s here now and she can hear the thumping of child’s footsteps so there’s no turning back now. It’s Regina who opens the door, however, in this body-hugging cobalt dress that makes Emma blush and forget what she wanted to say. “Come in, Ms Swan,” Regina says. She turns and Emma’s granted a view of her upper back where the dress dips low, shoulder blades shifting as she walks.

 

The house has barely changed since Emma was last there ten years ago, furniture in the same spots, same décor, same weird abstract art in the foyer. She remembers Regina talking about wanting to sell it and build her own place with Daniel. Obviously this didn’t happen. There are photos of Henry everywhere, though none of Regina or Daniel that she can see. Regina leads her into the kitchen, where Henry sits at the table, a sheath of paper in front of him. “Hey,” she says, waving so she has something to do with her hands.

 

“Hi,” Henry says. “Do you want a drink or something?” His own impeccable manners make Emma feel rough. Because she’s around teenagers all day she forgets, sometimes, that manners are important.

 

She looks over at Regina. “I’m making tea,” Regina says. Emma can hear the faint hum of the dishwasher.

 

“That’d be great,” she replies and sits down across from Henry at the familiar kitchen table. “So…”

 

“Right.” Henry looks down at his papers, business-like. “How old were you when you got pregnant with me?”

 

He’s abrupt and it takes Emma aback, though she supposes it shouldn’t given that his mother is Regina Mills. “Seventeen,” she says. “Eighteen when you were born.”

 

“Mom said you were at high school,” he says. “She said she was your teacher.”

 

“Yeah,” Emma says. “And then when I was kicked out of school, she tutored me. I got into college thanks to her.”

 

He nods. Regina brings her a cup of tea and Henry a cocoa, before slipping out of the room, her own tea in hand. “You have yours with cinnamon too,” Emma says, though she hasn’t had cocoa since she was a kid, and he smiles.

 

“Yeah.” Henry’s eyes squint shut when he smiles, just like Neal’s used to. He continues with the quick fire questions, everything from her favourite colour to where she went to college, but not touching on anything deep. Then, he pauses before saying, “so, why did you give me up?”

 

Emma chokes on her tea, spilling hot liquid down her front. “God, kid.” Henry observes her silently, sticking his finger into the cream on top of his cocoa and licking it off. “I was seventeen,” she says eventually. “Mary Margaret’s awesome but the money she got to take me in ran out when I turned eighteen. There’s no way she could’ve supported me on her salary and I wouldn’t have wanted her to. I wanted to give you your best chance.”

 

“But you could’ve still kept me,” Henry says. “My best chance might’ve been with you.”

 

“And you’d be living in some shitty apartment while I waited tables day and night to make ends meet instead of in a mansion with a mother who would give the world for you.” Emma pauses. “I chose them, you know, your mom and dad? They wanted you so much.”

 

Henry shrugs. “I know and I love Mom. But she’s, like, old and serious and stuff.” Emma stifles a laugh at Henry’s description, which would surely incense Regina. “You’re cool. You swear and eat bad food and dress like a teenager.”

 

“Oh, kid,” Emma says. “Trust me when I say none of those are good things.” Except maybe the clothes. She really likes her jeans.

 

Regina enters the kitchen. “Henry, dear,” she says. “Time for bed, I think.”

 

Henry grumbles. “Five more minutes?”

 

“School tomorrow,” Regina says. “Teeth and pyjamas. You may read for twenty minutes.”

 

He gives Emma a look, like ‘see what I mean’, and slides off the chair. “Fine,” and stomps off upstairs. She hears a door slam distantly.

 

“He’s a good kid,” Emma says. “You’ve raised him well.”

 

“I am aware, Ms Swan,” Regina says, collecting their cups and rinsing them.

 

“Sorry,” Emma says. “Didn’t mean to be, like, patronising.” She stands, hands in pockets of her jeans, shoulders arched forward.

 

“Would you like something a bit stronger than tea?” Regina asks.

 

“Yeah,” Emma says, letting out a breath. “That’d be _great_.” So Regina escorts her into her study and pours her a glass of apple cider.

 

“I distil it myself,” she says. “From the trees in the backyard. I’ll just check on Henry.”

 

Emma sips the cider, potent and delicious, and looks around the bookshelves. The room is mostly unchanged from when Emma was last here, though there’s a framed picture of two figures in thick, broad brushstrokes on one wall instead of the print of a horse that used to be in pride of place. Teacher printing reads ‘My Family by Henry age 5’ and she smiles at the visual. When she stands behind the desk, she notices the framed photo. Henry must be about one, sitting on Daniel’s lap, with Regina leaning against him. The kid’s arms are a blur because he’s yanking on Regina’s braid and she has the biggest smile on her face mirrored by the even broader smile on Daniel’s and Emma wants to cry because it’s not fair that it had to be like this.

 

“That was his first birthday,” Regina says. “I wrote you about it. My friend Kathryn was insistent on getting proper family photos of us but Henry wouldn’t sit still. He never did.”

 

“I remember that email,” Emma says. She’d been in the middle of midterms, trying to keep her head above water. It had made her smile. “I did read them, you know?” Sometimes over and over again.

 

“Well,” Regina says. “Henry’s in bed.” She takes the empty glass of cider from Emma and sets it on a coaster pulled from a drawer on her desk. Emma almost laughs at how anal retentive she is.

 

“Kid asks a lot of questions,” Emma says.

 

“I did warn you,” Regina replied, trailing fingers down Emma’s arm and Emma feels them brush electricity against her skin.

 

She’s tired and numb and she wants to feel alive so she bridges the distance between them and kisses Regina, first softly on the scar gracing her lip and then harder on her lips, insistent. Regina sighs against her skin and manoeuvres them away from the desk and over to the window seat, curtains blessedly drawn. She straddles Emma, pulling at her clothes and Emma does the same, fiddling with the zip down the back of Regina’s dress, fingers running over the nubs of her spine.

 

Regina pulls the dress over her head impatiently and then she’s between Emma’s legs, pulling Emma’s tight jeans and underwear down until they reach her ankles and Emma kicks them free. Her tongue flicks and strokes, alternating hard, rough licks and soft kisses, and it’s all Emma can do not to scream at this most exquisite torture. Her body feels stretched and hot, her breath stutters and a moan escapes her lips as she comes embarrassingly quickly, legs shaking under the pressure. Regina brings her down with soft caresses and emerges from between her legs.

 

Emma returns the favour, fingers shaking as they wend their way into her underwear. Regina’s wet and her eyes scorch Emma’s skin. She pulls off her underwear and straddles Emma, pulling their bodies closer and closer together as Emma slides two fingers into her, scissoring and twisting them so that she makes soft, mewling noises from the back of her throat. Emma’s thumb finds her clit, flicking and pressing until Regina freezes, back arched and eyes closed. They stay in this position for a moment, Emma edging her fingers out and using her other hand to stroke Regina’s back. She rests her cheek against Regina’s chest, rising in rapid rat-tat-tat beats.

 

Then, Regina stands. “Thank you, Ms Swan. I think it’s time you went.”

 

So Emma pulls her clothes back on, ignoring the uncomfortable stickiness between her thighs, and leaves. She makes it to her car before she starts to cry. It’s too much and not enough all at once and she knows she’ll be back for more, as long as Regina lets her.

 

*

 

Emma was thirty-six weeks pregnant when she got the letter. Mary Margaret had collected the mail and brought it in, radiating excitement. “It’s a thin letter,” she said. “Open it!”

 

“You know that’s an urban legend,” Emma said. She didn’t hold out much hope, her safety schools had rejected her, as had Northeastern and the University of Maine, her two top choices. She held little hope that she might be accepted at Tufts of all places. Community college was looking increasingly likely – or finding a job. Still she ripped the letter open with shaking hands and read the opening lines.

 

_Dear Emma Swan,_

_I am pleased to inform you of your acceptance…_

 

She dropped the letter.

 

“Well?” Mary Margaret asked and Emma handed it over. Mary Margaret scanned the pages, let out a high pitched squeal and pulled Emma into an ungainly hug. “Oh, Emma. I’m so proud!”

 

Emma grinned, heart thumping, and wrapped an arm around Mary Margaret. The bean kicked out, its own private congratulations. “I need to call Ms Mills,” she said.

 

“Of course,” Mary Margaret said, the smile refusing to leave her round face.

 

Ms Mills invited them both to dinner to celebrate but Mary Margaret had parent interviews so she and Emma had lunch together at the diner. Emma turned up at Mifflin Street that evening, carrying a pie Mary Margaret had baked, and fiddling with her the hem of the dress Mary Margaret had insisted she wear nervously. Ms Mills opened the door to her. “Come in,” she said. “Emma, I’m so proud.”

 

“Thanks,” Emma said. The grin hadn’t left her face all day. It was starting to hurt but it was a good ache.

 

Mr Mills appeared from the kitchen. “Wonderful news, kid,” he said, pulling her into a hug.

 

“Thanks, Mr Mills,’ she said.

 

“Daniel,” he replied, grimacing. “Please.”

 

“Okay,” Emma said. “You call me and Emma and I’ll call you Daniel. No more ‘kid’ or ‘kiddo’.”

 

He grinned. “Fair enough. Hey, Reggie, this is how you lose a nickname.”

 

“So I can see,” she said. “What a pity you’ll respond to just about anything, darling.”

 

“I do like ‘darling’ best,” he said. Ms Mills rolled her eyes and left the room. “Sorry for being gross, _Emma_.”

 

“Quite all right, Daniel,” she replied and handed him the pie. “Mary Margaret made it. I can’t cook.”

 

“That makes two of you,” Daniel said. “God, the bean’s lucky he’ll have me as a dad.” He stopped after he said that and looked at Emma, as though realising that what he’d said might be a bit raw but Emma nodded. The baby was lucky.

 

A cork popped and Ms Mills returned to the foyer with a bottle of sparkling grape juice and three champagne flutes. She passed them out and poured. “Congratulations, Emma,” she said, clinking glasses with her.

 

After fettuccini and Mary Margaret’s pie, Ms Mills made tea and Emma looked at the photos framed on the wall of their living room. She spent some time in front of the wedding photo, Regina in a simple white dress, and red heels and looking so radiantly happy and Daniel, gangly and uncomfortable in his suit.

 

A framed photograph of an older gentleman, balding and grey haired, hung next to it. The collar of his shirt was crooked. “My father,” Ms Mills said, coming up behind her and handing her a mug of herbal tea. “Henry. He was the best man imaginable; kind, loving, thought I was perfect.”

 

“Was?” Emma asked.

 

“He died when I went to college,” she said. “Car accident. My mother died of a heart attack three years ago.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Emma said.

 

Ms Mills nodded and they stood staring at the photos together in silence. “Well, this has been sufficiently depressing,” she said, turning to Emma. “Any questions that don’t involve death?”

 

“When did you get married?” Emma asked.

 

“Four years ago,” she said. “Mother complained bitterly the whole time – far too simple an affair – but we wanted to pay for it all ourselves.”

 

“Happiest day of my life,” Daniel said, where he lay on the couch, long, knobbly feet up on the arm rest. “How you doing, kiddo?”

 

Emma rolled her eyes. “Good. Kind of achy and cramping but good.” Daniel pulled a face and she added, “well, you asked.”

 

“Need a lift home?”

 

“Yeah,” Emma said, too tired to be polite. She’d walked over and that had been more than enough exercise for the day. “That’d be lovely.” Ms Mills grabbed her keys and Emma settled into the front seat.

 

They travelled in companionable silence. When she pulled up outside Mary Margaret’s building, Emma unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. She turned back when she got out. “Henry,” she said. “It’s a good name if it’s a boy.” Ms Mills smiled.

 

The next morning after a night of trying to get comfortable, Emma woke up too early to damp sheets and a searing pain in her lower abdomen.

 

*

 

Emma returns home from Regina and Henry’s to find Mary Margaret curled up on the couch watching ‘Pearl Harbour’. “Darling,” she says, pausing the DVD. “How was it?”

 

“Fine,” Emma says. “He’s a sweet kid.”

 

Mary Margaret nods. She used to teach him. She knows Henry’s lovely. “Did you and Regina talk afterwards? You’re back late.”

 

Emma shrugs. “I guess. How are you feeling?”

 

“Good,” she says. The beanie she now wears permanently covers her bald head. “David came by earlier.” Emma likes David. He’s kind and dependable and doesn’t seem to mind that Mary Margaret doesn’t have much energy. “Come and watch with me.”

 

Emma shifts from one foot to the other. As much as she feels she should spend more time with her foster mother, she feels sticky and depressed and needs some time alone. “Tired,” she says. “I think I’ll shower and go to bed early.”

 

“Okay sweetie,” Mary Margaret says peaceably. “You have a good sleep.” So Emma showers and crawls into bed and tries not to spend every sleepless moment thinking about Regina Mills.

 

She’s grading papers at her desk after school the next day, trying and failing to keep her mind focused on the dullest essays she’s ever read (seriously, you’d think fourteen year olds would have more interesting things to say about ‘The Hunger Games’) and not on Regina, when Regina comes to her classroom door. “Hey,” Emma says. “I was just thinking about you.” She grins and waggles her eyebrows because she has no game and may as well make that very clear.

 

“Ms Swan,” Regina says. “Henry would like you to have dinner with us tomorrow. Seven o’clock.” It’s not phrased as a request and so Emma simply nods.

 

“Anything you want me to bring?” she asks. “Wine? Cake? Handcuffs?” She was upset last night but, God, she wants more of Regina Mills.

 

Regina’s lips twitch into an almost-smile. “Oh please, Ms Swan. Don’t pretend you could handle that.” She leaves the classroom, hips swaying, and it takes all of Emma’s willpower not to go after her.

 

Mary Margaret smiles when she says she’s going to Regina and Henry’s for dinner. “I’m so glad you’re finally able to connect with Henry,” she says.

 

“Me too,” Emma replies.

 

She arrives at Regina’s, having squeezed herself into a dress she wore back in Boston, back when she was too thin, subsisting on caffeine and stress and not being fed rich food by Mary Margaret and Ruby simultaneously. It’s tight over her boobs and she covers it with a jacket, torn between wanting to impress Regina and not wanting to scar Henry for life.

 

He opens the door for her this time. “Hey, Emma. Mom’s in the kitchen. I’ve got to finish my homework.” He runs off upstairs and Emma wanders into the kitchen.

 

Regina’s at the bench, apron over her crisp tailored shirt. She has a dab of tomato puree on her cheek. “I take it Henry’s returned to do his homework,” Regina says.

 

“Yeah,” Emma says, moving over to bench and glancing at the oven. “Oh my God, are you making lasagne?”

 

“Daniel’s recipe,” she says.

 

“I _love_ you,” Emma says fervently, because she’s literally dreamt about Daniel’s lasagne since the first time she ate it, and then blushes. “You know what I mean.” The faintest flush stains Regina’s cheeks. Emma removes her jacket, enjoying how Regina’s eyes darken at the swell of cleavage on display. Emma moves closer, reaches out and brushes the sauce off Regina’s cheek with her thumb. “Sorry,” she says. “Sauce.”

 

Regina presses her body against her and Emma’s back slams into the bench. She winces but the pain doesn’t last long, not when Regina’s there to kiss it better, one hand snaking around to curve against Emma’s lower back and the other cupping her breast.

 

“Mom?”

 

Regina bites at Emma’s lip sharply and shoves her away, leaping forward to her son. “Henry, darling…” Emma straightens up, a sick emptiness in the pit of her stomach.

 

“What the hell?” Henry asks. He’s angry and embarrassed, eyebrows knotted together and face pink.

 

“I think I should go,” Emma says.

 

“No,” Henry says emphatically. “You stay. Explain what’s going on.”

 

Emma grabs her jacket. “I’m sorry, kid.” And she leaves.

 

*

 

It was too soon, she’d told the doctor. She wasn’t ready, she’d said to the nurse measuring her dilation. They’d smiled. “Afraid the train’s out of the station now,” Doctor Whale had said and she’d told him to fuck off.

 

When it was over, she lay back, sweat caking her hair to her forehead and whole body aching. The nurse had handed her the baby, placing him against her skin. He was small and wrinkled and pink and totally healthy in spite of being a few weeks earlier than expected and she’d never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.

 

“Hey, kid,” she murmured, stroking his downy, dark hair with her index finger as the baby snuffled at her breast. The nurse had helped him latch on and then Emma had asked for some time alone. “Your mom and dad will be here soon. You’re so lucky. They’re pretty much the coolest ever.” She kept it light because she thought she might cry and she didn’t want Mary Margaret to see that when she returned from the hospital cafeteria – or worse, Daniel and Ms Mills.

 

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Emma said and the baby stirred, letting go over her nipple. She covered her chest with the hospital gown. Daniel and Ms Mills entered.

 

“Hey,” Daniel whispered. “How are we?” Ms Mills didn’t speak but her eyes were round and latched on the dark head resting against Emma.

 

“Hold him,” Emma said and Regina gently lifted him off Emma, curling him into her arms and staring down at him with such devotion Emma’s eyes welled up.

 

“Hello, Henry,” Regina murmured, eyes soft and shining. She looked as though she could hardly believe this was real. Daniel stroked the baby’s hair. “I’m going to love you so much.”

 

When Emma and Henry were examined by Dr Whale and discharged several hours later, Regina and Daniel took Henry with them and Emma curled numbly up in the backseat of Mary Margaret’s car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews. They mean the world.  
> I'm not even trying to make the vignettes similar length anymore obviously.
> 
> Chapter title: 'When I Kissed the Teacher' by ABBA


	5. This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave

“So what’s the purpose of this piece of writing?” Emma asks. A flurry of hands goes up. “Jenny?”

 

“To persuade,” she says. She flicks her dyed black fringe from her eyes with nails that must have taken her hours to get perfect, delicate patterns painted on them. The nail art was how Emma bonded with her initially; they’d discuss nail polish and hair maintenance because even though Emma’s not into any of that, her golden curls and preternaturally long lashes make her look the part.

 

“Persuade us of what? Jayden?”

 

Jayden shrugs, which is his typical approach to life. “Dunno.”

 

“Yeah, you do,” Emma says. “What’s the article about?”

 

“Dog fighting,” he says, scratching his head, beanie covering chin length curly hair. “That it’s bad and shit.”

 

“So its purpose is to persuade us to…” she prompts, ignoring the swearing because it’s more than she’s got out of Jayden all semester.

 

“Stop dog fighting?”

 

“Exactly.” She turns to write this on the board and spots the messenger at the door, hand poised to knock. She opens it. “Hi.” The messenger gives her a yellow slip of paper – a summons to Mr Gold’s office – and leaves. It reads ‘Alicia Morales’ and Emma feels her heart sink. She slides the note onto Alicia’s desk, sees her face blanch before she grabs her bag and leaves.

 

“Okay,” Emma says, returning to the front of the class. “So we have the purpose. Who’s the audience?”

 

After her sophomore class it is lunchtime and she slips her heels back on, goes to the staffroom and finds Belle French by the coffee pot. The librarian seems to know everything that happens in Gold’s office – quite possibly because they’re fucking. Emma can’t help being judgemental about this, which is the ultimate hypocrisy given who she’s been sleeping with. “What’s the story with Alicia Morales?” she murmurs.

 

“There was a fight before school,” Belle says, handing her a mug. “Bystanders saw Alicia involved.”

 

“This is her third fight this semester,” Emma says, pouring milk liberally into her coffee with shaky hands. She knows what this could mean for Alicia. She could be expelled. Belle smiles sympathetically and Emma leaves.

 

Alicia’s sitting outside the school office, dried tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. “Oh, honey,” Emma says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “What happened?”

 

“Gold said I was involved,” she says. “I wasn’t. I just pulled Gabi off Sara because she’s my friend and I didn’t want her to get into trouble. Gold won’t listen to me.”

 

Emma’s taken back to her own time at schools, being the tall kid in middle school that smaller kids pushed into or kicked and expected a reaction, being the kid at high school who had a lot of rage and hurt feelings and no suitable outlets. “Maybe he’ll listen to me,” Emma says grimly.

 

Alicia looks at her dubiously, one eyebrow raised in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Regina Mills. “Yeah, probably not. Like, if you were Mr Locksley or Ms Mills maybe…”

 

Shit.

 

“I’ll be back,” Emma says and, walking as quickly as she can without slopping coffee over her hands, she makes her way to Regina’s classroom. Regina’s at her desk and looking through the glass in the door, Emma is able to see her in a rare, unguarded moment. She looks exhausted, as though every breath is an effort and her hair is frizzing the roots. Emma knocks softly and opens the door. Regina’s head jerks up, the mask returning, jaw tightening and eyes darkening.

 

“This is not the time, Ms Swan,” Regina says.

 

“I’m not here about last night,” Emma says. “I mean, we need to talk but I agree that school isn’t the place. I’m here because I need your help.”

 

“And why would I do anything to help you?”

 

“Because it’s not for me,” Emma says. “It’s for Alicia Morales.”

 

Regina pauses. “What’s happened?”

 

“She’s been accused of fighting,” Emma says. “She says she was trying to split the girls up but Gold doesn’t believe her…”

 

Regina stands, slipping her blazer back on. She strides out of the room and Emma runs to catch up with her. Regina reaches Gold’s office without even looking around her, students in the corridor scattering as she approaches.

 

She walks into his office and Emma catches a sharp, “We said never again, Gold,” before the door is slammed in Emma’s face. So she sits down beside Alicia who’s looking in awe at Gold’s closed door.

 

“So,” Emma says. “Ms Mills is pretty terrifying.”

 

Alicia giggles. “You so have a crush on her, Miss.”

 

“Oh my God,” Emma says, horrified. “I do not.”

 

“Liar,” Alicia says. “She’s too much for you to handle.”

 

“You are fifteen,” Emma says. “We are not having this conversation.”

 

They sit side by side for a moment in silence. “Hey,” she says. “I’m liking the book. The Mango Street one.”

 

Emma grins. “I’m glad.”

 

“Like, it’s hard but it’s really beautiful.”

 

The door to Gold’s office opens and Regina exits. “Mr Gold would like to speak with you, Ms Morales,” she says. Alicia gulps and stands but is stayed by a hand on her arm. “It’s going to be okay,” she says, voice soft.

 

“How’d you manage Gold?” Emma asks, awestruck, as they leave the office.

 

“I have many skills, Ms Swan,” Regina says loftily and Emma laughs.

 

“Did you seriously just quote Xena?” she asks.

 

Regina shrugs. “I have had a very long night, calming down a distraught little boy, Ms Swan. I am not in the mood for… flirting.” So Emma lets her return to her classroom alone, half-empty mug of coffee now cold.

 

*

 

Emma started working at the diner for a few hours a day, just days after giving birth, her breasts swollen and leaking milk periodically. Granny put her in the kitchen, washing dishes and chopping vegetables. She’d just lost a part-time busboy – though Emma wasn’t sure she believed that.

 

She needed to keep busy. She helped out in Mary Margaret’s fifth grade class, doing some reading recovery and helping out with whatever was needed. She learned to cook, making three course dinners several nights a week. She started reading ‘Anna Karenina’.

 

She hadn’t seen the kid. Ms Mills had called several times but Emma hadn’t answered her phone. Two weeks after the birth, Emma was attempting to knit the blanket she’d started six months ago – that was more hole than blanket – when the landline rang. Mary Margaret answered. “Emma, darling,” she said, holding the phone out and Emma shook her head.

 

“I don’t need to see him to know he’s happy,” she said.

 

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Mary Margaret said. “I think Regina and Daniel want to know that you’re okay.”

 

“Well, you can tell them that I’m fine. Great.”

 

“Tell her yourself,” Mary Margaret said and shoved the phone to her ear, taking the blanket and knitting needles from her and starting to fix her mistakes.

 

“Hi,” Emma said, curt.

 

“Emma.” The relief in Ms Mills’ voice was apparent. “How are you, dear?”

 

“Fine,” she said.

 

“Okay,” Ms Mills said. “Prove it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Come and see us.”

 

“I’m really busy,” Emma said.

 

Mary Margaret grabbed the phone back off her. “Come over for tea,” she said. “Any time suits. Emma’s not going anywhere today.” She hung up.

 

Emma frowned, stood and grabbed her coat. “Going out,” she said.

 

“If you’re not back in an hour, I’m calling the sheriff.”

 

“Go ahead,” Emma said. “Just try it. I’m eighteen. I’ll just leave.”

 

Mary Margaret gave her a long look, lips twisting and large brown eyes unblinking. “Emma, darling. You’re not okay.”

 

“Do you really think I would be?” she said. “I had a baby. He was all mine for a blissful forty-five minutes and then he was gone and logically I know it’s a good thing but you’re all trying to make me see him again and that’s not healing. That’s incredibly painful and I can’t handle it.” She was crying and Mary Margaret enveloped her in her arms.

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured into Emma’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Don’t make me see him,” Emma mumbled. “Please.”

 

Mary Margaret tucked her under a blanket on the couch and called Ms Mills back. “Maybe don’t come by with Henry, Regina,” she said. “Emma’s having a bit of a hard time.”

 

Ms Mills didn’t come by. Instead, she did the best thing possible. The next day, Emma received a call from a woman called Kathryn who owned a coffee shop in Boston. “Regina recommended you,” she said. “She’s offering to pay your board with me and my partner until college starts and you’ll take on shifts in my shop. You in?”

 

Emma stammered her thanks and one week later her suitcase was in the back of Mary Margaret’s little car, ready for them to travel to Boston. “One stop first,” Emma said and Mary Margaret nodded in understanding.

 

She left the box on the doorstep of 108 Mifflin Street and didn’t look back.

 

*

 

It has been two weeks and Regina has not spoken to Emma beyond what is expected as her faculty head and colleague. Emma’s sitting in a booth at the diner with Mary Margaret, using the straw of her milkshake to stir it.

 

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Mary Margaret asks. She’s really well today, managed a decent walk and she’s having a date night with David that night.

 

“I fu-screwed it all up,” Emma says, rubbing her eyes with her index finger, shoulders slumped forward.

 

“Nothing is so screwed up it can’t be unscrewed,” she says, touching Emma’s outstretched arm. “Talk me through it.”

 

“I was starting to build my relationship with Henry,” she says. “You know that. Then he caught me making out with his mom up against the kitchen counter.” She expects Mary Margaret to be shocked or disappointed. She doesn’t expect the gurgle of uncontained laughter that bursts from her. “What?” Emma asks.

 

“I’m sorry,” Mary Margaret says, wiping her eyes between giggles. “It’s just, you’ve been in love with her since you were seventeen…”

 

“What? In love? You knew?”

 

“Oh, honey. I don’t care. You’re both adults. It’s just… cute.”

 

Emma pulls a face. “Well, it’s not going to be anything anymore because I ran out and now she hates me and Henry hates me and I’m just feeling a bit shitty at the moment.”

 

“The whole Henry business is serious,” Mary Margaret says. “You need to talk to him. He probably feels like you’ve abandoned him.”

 

“Again,” Emma says.

 

“You gave him up to a family you knew would love and care for him,” Mary Margaret says. “You didn’t abandon him.”

 

“Semantics.”

 

“Talk to him,” Mary Margaret says. “And then talk to her. She hasn’t let anyone into her life since Daniel died. You obviously mean something.”

 

Emma leaves the diner with renewed purpose. She will track down Regina. She will apologise to her and to Henry. Everything will be fine. She is so full of purpose, she fails to notice Regina walking towards her and walks directly into her, mashing the jelly doughnut clutched in a napkin between finger and thumb that she’d taken for the road into Regina’s cleavage.

 

“Oh, for…” Regina swipes at her top, sugar granules and jam stuck to her skin, along with bits of cake crumb, and glares at her – the death glare that terrifies her students into submission.

 

“I’m so sorry!” Emma says, mortified.

 

“So this you’re sorry for,” Regina says, sneering.

 

“Can we talk?”

 

“You have the time it takes for me to clean myself up,” Regina says. Emma follows her into the bathrooms in the diner, ignoring Ruby’s snickers. Regina pulls off her shirt, digs into her purse for Kleenex and wets one with a dribble of water from the tap. “Well?” she asks, because Emma cannot take her eyes off Regina’s breasts encased in a lilac bra and the smooth, olive planes of her stomach below them.

 

“Sorry,” Emma says, looking up. Regina’s jaw is tight and it looks as though she’s working her tongue across her teeth. “I shouldn’t have left. I didn’t know what else to do.”

 

“I managed to calm Henry down,” Regina says, not looking at her but in the mirror. “He’s at a session with Dr Hopper today though. He’s angry.”

 

“I’m sorry. I’ll be there when – if – he’s ready to talk to me.”

 

“Running does appear to be your modus operandi,” Regina says. “A bit old hat now, don’t you think?”

 

“You helped me run that first time,” Emma says softly. “Got me a job, paid for me to stay with Kath and Fred.”

 

“But I thought you’d come back.” There’s a tremor in Regina’s voice that Emma’s not heard before. “Two years of emails, Ms Swan, and you never once replied.”

 

“I miss you,” Emma says.

 

“Please don’t do this, Ms Swan,” Regina says. She pulls her shirt back on and pats down her hair. “It was just sex.”

 

“It could have been more,” Emma replies.

 

“I told you it couldn’t be,” Regina says, tucking the tissues back into her handbag and swinging it back over her shoulder. “When Henry’s ready, you may attempt to regain his trust. But my first priority is him. I will not throw my son away for a bit of easy sex.”

 

“You never used to be hard,” Emma says.

 

“Yes, well,” Regina says. “I grew up, Ms Swan.” And she walks out of the bathroom, leaving Emma leaning against the sinks, broken.

 

*

 

“Babe, you want toast?” Kathryn yelled up the stairs.

 

Emma pulled her hair back into a ponytail, slipped her feet into battered chucks and ran down the stairs. “Can you put two slices on for me?” she asked. “Thanks.”

 

“So I had this dream last night,” Kathryn said, slathering her own toast with an extreme amount of raspberry jam and popped two more slices in the toaster. “We were late for our psychology final and then when we got there I couldn’t answer any of the questions. I woke up freaking out and woke up Fred who had to explain to me that, even when I was briefly at college, I didn’t take psychology. You’re not working today, are you?” This was all said in one run on sentence, Kathryn barely stopping for breath.

 

“No. Thought I’d check out campus,” Emma said. She’d been putting it off, too busy working and grieving, but she felt good today.

 

“Awesome,” Kathryn said. “If you need a lift anywhere, give me or Fred a call. Pretend like it’s an emergency and I’ll run out of Shangri-latte, panicking, freak everyone out.”

 

“You already do too much for me,” Emma said. Kathryn was Regina’s high school best friend. She was vain and ridiculous and extremely lovable and Emma loved living with her and her partner, Fred, in their little rental in suburban Boston.

 

There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” Emma said, grabbing a slice of Kathryn’s toast on the way, ignoring her outraged squeal. She had a mouthful of bread and jam when she opened the door and almost choked. “Daniel!” she said.

 

“Hey, kid,” Daniel said. “Glad to see your eating habits haven’t changed any.” He pulled her into a hug. He smelt like aftershave and grass and the stubble on his chin scraped her cheek when he went in for a kiss.

 

“Oh my God,” she said. It had been three months since she’d seen him.

 

“Daniel Mills,” Kathryn said, entering the hall. “As I live and breathe.”

 

“Kitty, love,” Daniel said, picking her up and swinging her around in the narrow hallway. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

 

“I owe you nothing,” she said.

 

“She still can’t cook after four years of marriage. Now, pay up.”

 

Kathryn grumbled but reached for her wallet. “I assume you’re not just here to extort money,” she said, pouring a handful of loose change into Daniel’s outstretched hand. “Never make a bet with this guy. He’s a real Sky Masterson.” Emma laughed.

 

“Training course,” he said. “Starts this afternoon so I thought I’d pop by and see my favourite people. Reggie’s sorry she couldn’t make it but it’s too long a drive for our little guy.” Emma tensed but he didn’t say anything more about the kid.

 

“I’ve got work,” Kathryn said. “And Fred’s coaching basketball down at the youth centre. Hey, you could take Emma over to Tufts, check out the campus with her, pretend you’re going to college in the fall even though you’re far too old and decrepit.”

 

“I’d love to,” Daniel said. “Your chariot awaits, m’lady.” Emma rolled her eyes but stuffed the rest of the toast in her mouth, grabbed her phone and wallet and jumped into the passenger seat of his truck.

 

They wandered around the Tufts campus for a while, sun bright. Emma was pretty sure she was getting burnt. Daniel told her the Storybrooke gossip, which she’d already heard from Ruby, but it was nice. When they grabbed takeaway coffee at one of the campus coffee shops and sat down in a grassy square, Emma took a deep breath and asked, “how’s Ms Mills? And the kid?”

 

“They’re grand,” Daniel said, stretching out his legs. “Reggie’s taking to motherhood like a champ. Henry’s thriving; he’s a real cutie.”

 

“Good,” Emma said; it’s all she could get out, her throat constricting as she tried to say more, say something meaningful.

 

“Thank you for the blanket,” he said. She’d left it in the box on their doorstep, finally finished. Mary Margaret had patched up her mistakes and helped her embroider Henry’s name on it in purple. “You know, kiddo, whenever you’re ready, you have a place in his life, I swear to you.”

 

It was really uncool to cry in public at the university you’d be attending in less than two months so Emma didn’t. “There wasn’t really a training course, was there?” she asked. “You were checking up on me.”

 

Daniel shrugged. “I mean, I could keep lying to you…” He took a long drink of coffee. “We were worried about you, kid. Mary Margaret and Ruby pass on your news, but we’d got pretty used to having you in our lives.”

 

“I’m really good,” Emma said and this time she wasn’t lying. “Kath and Fred have been amazing and I’m about to start college and move on with my life. I just, I can’t see him because I’ll never want to let him go.”

 

“I understand,” Daniel said. “I have a hard enough time going to work every day and leaving him behind. Hey, I should probably head off. You want a lift back?”

 

Emma shook her head. “Think I’ll hang out here a bit longer,” she said. Daniel stood and she hugged him again, feeling his arms, strong and warm around her. On impulse, she called after him as she left, giving him her email address scrawled onto the side of her coffee cup. “Maybe you could email me about him,” she said. “I might not be ready to reply just yet but I’d like to hear about him.”

 

Daniel smiled.

 

*

 

“I can stay here if you want,” Mary Margaret says. Emma shakes her head. She’d returned to the apartment after her encounter with Regina, grabbed a beer and attempted to fix the toaster. One broken toaster later and Emma had been banned from the kitchen. She’s sitting on the couch now, holding a pillow like a teddy bear and sulking.

 

“No,” Emma says. “Go out. You look beautiful. Dance the night away. Only don’t actually. Be sensible and don’t wear yourself out.” She does look beautiful, in a pink dress Emma hasn’t seen before.

 

“Text me if you need anything,” she says and Emma nods. She turns on the TV when Mary Margaret leaves, flicking through channels in the attempt to find something that isn’t a Lifetime movie of Seinfeld re-runs. Nothing.

 

She’s contemplating a sixth beer or possibly heating up leftovers because her stomach’s feeling weird and sloshy when there’s a knock at the door. She opens it and finds Henry. “Kid, what are you doing here?”

 

“I need to speak with you,” he says, dark eyes serious.

 

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

 

“No,” he says.

 

“Again?” Emma grabs her phone, scrolling through for Regina’s number.

 

“No, don’t bother her,” he says. “She’s doing yoga or meditating or something. You can drive me home in a bit.”

 

“No,” Emma says. “I can’t.” She’s definitely over the limit. She dials Regina and leaves a message when she doesn’t pick up. “Hey, it’s Emma. Kid’s shown up here again. You need to come and pick him up.” Hanging up, she turns back to Henry and says, “you need to stop doing this.”

 

Henry nods, pushing past her and sitting, feet dangling from the edge of the couch. “I needed to see you though.”

 

“I’m really sorry,” she says, sitting on the coffee table so that they’re eye to eye. “I want you and me to be friends, yeah?”

 

“Friends?” Henry asks, dubious, nose wrinkled and eyebrows raised.

 

“I think it’d be a good start,” she says. “Look, I can’t promise that I’ll get it right but I can promise that I won’t skip town or leave you again like I did the other week.”

 

“I’m really upset with you,” he says. “Dr Hopper says I need to say my feelings out loud even when it’s hard. So I’m really upset with you, not for sucking face with my mom even though that’s just gross, but because you left us again and Mom’s really sad.”

 

“Your mom’ll be fine,” Emma says. “She doesn’t need me.”

 

“Mom doesn’t have relationships,” Henry says stubbornly. “It’s a rule. She doesn’t want to introduce people into my life who will then leave. If she broke that rule then it definitely means something.”

 

“Leave it alone, kid,” Emma says because there’s no good way to tell your estranged son that you and his mother never had a relationship, just a series of good fucks.

 

Henry nods. “Okay, I will. For now.” He pauses. “Why do you call me ‘kid’?”

 

Emma smiles. “Your dad used to call me ‘kid’. I hated it at the time but I miss it now.”

 

There’s a knock at the door. “Come in,” Emma calls out, and Regina enters, face scrubbed clean of makeup and wearing yoga pants and a baggy sweater. Her hair frizzes wildly and Emma wants to kiss her.

 

“Henry, we have talked and talked and talked about this.”

 

“Storybrooke’s really safe,” he says. “I can walk around after dark.”

 

“Nowhere is totally safe,” Regina replies. She grabs his coat and backpack in one hand. “Thank you, once again, Ms Swan, for looking out for my delinquent son.” Henry rolls his eyes behind his mother’s back.

 

“It’s fine,” Emma says. “I’d like to spend some time with Henry this weekend if that’s all right by you.”

 

Regina considers for a moment, lips pinching. Then she says, “I have a meeting on Saturday afternoon. I’ll drop Henry here at two and pick him up at five.”

 

“Perfect,” Emma says. “Look, Regina, I’m sorry about everything.”

 

“Save it,” she says, turning on her heel and walking out. Henry follows, smiling apologetically back at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, lovely people, for your support of this story. I've enjoyed the challenge of writing it.
> 
> Hopefully I'll be able to post the final chapter soon, but I've got a bit of a busy and ridiculous week and it's kind of bare-bones-y at this stage so we'll have to see. I do know that the flashbacks will end in the final chapter - though we'll still get the past coming through in a different way.
> 
> Also, feel free to follow me on tumblr (aimtoothpaste) - I'm not very good at a) self-promotion or b) actually posting about OUAT but I do a good line in stupid stories from my work and reblogging Brooklyn 99 photosets.
> 
> Shangri-latte was dreamed up by my friend, Liz, who won't read this but should be credited anyway.  
> Chapter Title: 'This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave' by Pet Shop Boys


	6. To Sir, With Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we leave the past behind - to a degree.

Henry arrives at two on Saturday and they spend a blissful three hours playing Life with Mary Margaret – because there are no other games in the apartment. It’s sort of uncomfortable, Henry still hesitant and Emma too awkward but Mary Margaret makes a good buffer, asking Henry about school and the stories he’s writing and how soccer is going.

“We’ve got a game next Saturday,” he says. “You guys should come along.”

“Thanks,” Emma says, grinning. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I mean, we’re not very good,” he adds. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I said I’d be there,” Emma says. “I used to play soccer a bit. Perhaps we could get together at the park sometime. I could show you a few tricks.”

Henry grins. “Cool.”

When Mary Margaret’s making popcorn – on the stovetop because apparently microwave popcorn “isn’t nearly as good” – Henry turns to her, fiddling with the little blue figures in his red car, and whispers, “so when are you going to get Mom back?”

“There’ll be no ‘getting’, kid,” Emma says. “She’s not some prize to be won.”

“So you’re just going to sit back and let her meet someone else,” he says. “That’s bull.”

“I don’t know what I can do,” she says. “I’ve apologised. We’re… civil.”

“She likes you a lot,” Henry says as Mary Margaret returns to the rug with a bowl of popcorn and sodas. “Figure it out.”

“Yes, Moooom,” Emma says, rolling her eyes at him.

Henry hugs her when Regina picks him up; it’s brief and hesitant and Emma almost cries because it’s the first time in ten years that she’s held her baby boy in her arms (even if he’s not her baby boy and never was really). “You had a good time, I take it,” Regina says dryly when Henry lets go of Emma and tucks a hand into Regina’s.

“Yeah,” Henry says. “Thanks, Emma. Thanks, Miss Blanchard.”

“Thank you,” Emma says, though she looks over Henry’s head to Regina who simply nods and escorts Henry away from the loft.

On Monday, Regina continues to ignore her, except to request test scores from the recent round of testing and hurry along her overdue unit outlines – but this is done in clipped emails that do not invite conversation, never in person. Emma takes the long route to the staffroom at lunch in order to walk past Regina’s classroom, but she doesn’t look up, even though Emma stands outside her room for a couple of minutes before she realises she’s behaving like a total creeper.

On Tuesday, Alicia Morales makes clucking sounds at her when she sees Emma on playground duty staring moodily over at Regina, talking with Locksley by the fence. “Seriously, Miss,” she says. “You’re actually pathetic.”

“Seriously, Alicia,” Emma replies, “I’ll have you cleaning gum from under desks so quickly…”

Alicia grins, tongue poking out between her teeth, and races off, shouting after her friend, Sara, to wait up.

On Wednesday, Emma walks to school via the diner. “What does Regina usually order?” she asks.

Ruby grins, painted lips gleaming. “Mocha,” she says. “Extra whipped cream.”

“Really?” Emma raises an eyebrow. She’d have picked Regina Mills as a black coffee type of woman.

“She’d tell you otherwise,” Ruby says, “but I know the truth.”

“Okay,” Emma says. ”One mocha with extra cream, thanks, and my regular.”

Ruby moves behind the coffee machine. “It’ll take more than a coffee to win over the evil queen.”

“Don’t call her that,” Emma says fiercely but Ruby just rolls her eyes.

She drops the mocha off on Regina’s classroom desk before school and hopes against all hope that Regina might speak to her. Regina drops into her classroom at the end of the school day. “Thank you for the coffee,” she says and leaves before Emma can even respond. This cuts sharper than any acerbic remark or anger could.

On Thursday, Mary Margaret is baking when Emma gets home, dragging her bag of marking into the living room and flopping into an armchair. “Bad day?”

“Today I do not want to be a teacher,” Emma says. Jayden called her a ‘bitch’ today and she’d had to send him out. She caught two girls cheating on a grammar test and then had an irate parent on the phone suggesting that the reason their precious daughter cheated was because Emma was a terrible teacher. Her bag of marking is starting to give her some serious anxiety and whose stupid idea was it to make every assessment due at the same time?

“One of those days, huh?” Mary Margaret says. She brings a wooden spoon with a healthy dollop of cookie dough caked to the end over to Emma. “I used to have them at least once a month. Now I wish I could have the occasional ‘I hate teaching’ day if I could just be a teacher again.”

Guilt coils in Emma’s stomach. “I’m being unbelievably self-centred,” she says. “You’ve got cancer and I’ve spent the past week whining because I had a hard day at work and the girl I like won’t like me back.”

Mary Margaret smiles and it still lights up her face, glowing and cheeks almost rosy. “If you can’t be self-centred around your mom, who can you be self-centred with?” For the first time ever Emma doesn’t mentally (or outwardly) correct ‘Mom’ to ‘foster Mom’ but pulls Mary Margaret towards her and wraps her arms tight around her. “Oof, honey,” Mary Margaret says. “I just about toppled over there.”

“I love you,” Emma says. “I’m sorry I stayed away so long.”

“But you came back,” Mary Margaret replies, sitting on the arm of the chair and stroking a hand through Emma’s hair. “That’s what counts.”

On Friday afternoon, after a couple of glasses of wine and reminiscing over past interactions with Regina Mills, Emma works out what she can do. She recalls the shake in Regina’s voice when she said, “Two years of emails, Ms Swan, and you never once replied.” She remembers the guilt she felt over that two year period, wanting to answer but being too scared. She realises she’s going to have to bare her soul and, to be honest, it fucking terrifies her.

She turns on her clunky, old laptop. Thank God for Gmail and for Emma’s inability to ever delete things from it. She finds the ‘Bean’ label and there, nested inside, are the hundreds of emails Regina sent to her over that two year period.

She can’t reply to all of them, but she can reply to some.

 **To: swanprincess@gmail.com  
** **From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**  
 **Subject: The first (of many) emails about Henry Emmett Mills**

 **Dear Emma,  
** **Henry is in that phase of babydom where he loves everyone and everything. He gums on Mary Margaret’s hideous cardigans. He giggles delightedly when Ruby Lucas blows raspberries on his belly. He wraps his tiny fingers around Daniel’s. But he loves me most. He can curl up against my chest for hours, while I read to him or sing appallingly (though Henry doesn’t seem to mind) or talk nonsense.**  
 **RM**

_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: RE: The first (of many) emails about Henry Emmett Mills_

_Hi Ms Mills!_   
_I’m glad Henry likes you best. That must be one of those ‘nature vs. nurture’ things because I like you best too. He is so lucky to have you guys and I miss him so much. That hour I spent with him before I handed him over to you was one of the best of my life. I wish I was brave enough to visit him._   
_Emma Swan_   
_PS Henry’s middle name just about made me cry._   
  
**To: s** **wanprincess@gmail.com**   
**From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: not everyone shares your passion for dead leaves**

**Dear Emma,**   
**I type this sitting on the back porch, a cup of tea cooling rapidly beside me, watching Daniel as he plays on the lawn with Henry. They’re rolling in dead leaves, Daniel making him fly with his feet on Henry’s stomach and Henry is squealing with delight, his giggles seeming to echo across the yard. Daniel doesn’t have a nickname for him yet, but he occasionally calls him ‘kiddo’ and then gets this melancholy look on his face and I know it’s because he misses you.**   
**RM**   
  
_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: nice Jane Austen reference, Ms Mills_

_Hey Ms Mills,_   
_When Daniel came and visited me, he called me ‘kid’ and even though I hate it, I had missed it. I still do._   
_I’m going out tonight with my roommate and her friends. She’s trying to convince me that I should wear this top that’s backless and mostly frontless as well but she doesn’t know I had a kid and I don’t want her to see my stretch marks and make some deductions. One good thing about you not giving birth to Henry? No stretch marks._   
_Your emails always make my day better. I’m sorry for the late reply._   
_Emma_   
  
**To: swanprincess@gmail.com**   
**From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: Henry is one!**

**We had Henry’s first birthday. Did you get your invitation? Kath and Fred came and took photos. Kath tried desperately to get a proper family picture of us and it so didn’t work. Henry’s a wriggler. He won’t sit still. He’s constantly on the move, nearly ready to walk. He’s not that interested in standing or walking though because he can get around on his bum incredibly quickly. He’s starting to wear through the seat of all his trousers.**   
**RM**   
  
_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: RE: Henry is one!_

_Dear Regina,_   
_I’ve started thinking of you as Regina, not Ms Mills. I hope that’s okay. Kath tried to show me the photos of Henry but I didn’t let her. I kind of wish I had. I bet he’s the cutest ever though. How could he not be with my genetics ;) Wish him a happy first birthday for me and give him a huge birthday kiss. Make sure it’s wet and stains his cheek with lipstick even though I don’t wear lipstick because I feel like that’s one of the requirements of being a cool aunt/birth mom/adult friend/whatever I might one day (not yet) be in his life._   
_Emma_

**To: swanprincess@gmail.com  
From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: Whinging**

**Today I do not want to be a mother. Henry is sick, his first illness, and while it was gorgeous at first because every time he sneezed he got this look of abject surprise on his face, he’s been grizzly and cross and he’s thrown up on me twice and he won’t sleep and since he won’t sleep Daniel and I don’t sleep. I’ve just started back at school and I just can’t function in a classroom without a full eight hours. I look hideous and I feel like the evil queen you and Ms Lucas used to refer to me as.**   
**Tell me I can be a mother. Tell me I can do this. Daniel believes in everyone and everything so he’s no use. You’re more sparing with your praise and, therefore, it is more worth the earning.**   
**RM**

_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: RE: Whinging_

_Hey Regina,_   
_I’m so sorry Henry is sick. I hope he gets well soon. There’s no way you look hideous. You’re the most beautiful woman I know and I know a lot of really attractive people._   
_Also, OMG you knew that we called you the Evil Queen? I’m so embarrassed._   
_Emma_   
_PS I bet you’re the best mother in the world. Henry is a lucky kid._

**To: swanp** **rincess@gmail.com**   
**From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: I really shouldn’t be emailing so late at night…**

**Sometimes when Daniel’s on nights, I panic. I used to get nightmares and I never used to sleep when he was gone. Now I fall asleep on the single bed in Henry’s room and if I wake, I watch him sleep. He’s asleep now and Daniel’s out and I can’t stop thinking long enough to rest. Henry sleeps with all his limbs splayed out, on his back, snoring lightly and blanket you knitted clutched in one chubby hand. If it weren’t for the fact that they aren’t genetically linked, that alone would convince me that he’s Daniel’s son.**   
**RM**

_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: Email as late as you want_

_Dear Regina,_   
_I am unbearably sorry I didn’t reply to this earlier. I wish I could sit with you while you worry and stroke your hair and say stupid things to keep your mind off it the danger Daniel might be in._   
_Love Emma_

**To: s** **wanprincess@gmail.com**   
**From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: Congratulations**

**Mary Margaret tells me you won an essay writing prize in your English class. Congratulations, Emma. I do wish you would write back; I feel like maybe we were becoming friendly before you left and I miss our Sundays together.**   
**Henry says hello. Actually, he said, ‘uggo’ and then let out an ear-piercing screech before toddling off to ransack the pots and pans cupboard (perhaps he will be a drummer in a band someday) but I have decided that this is what he means. I’m becoming rather adept at deciphering baby talk.**   
**RM**

_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: RE: Congratulations_

_Hi Regina,_   
_Yeah, I’m pretty thrilled. It came with a $500 prize, which means I won’t have to worry about where the money for next semester’s books is coming from. I’ve attached the essay if you want to read it. It was for my 19th century novel course and it’s about ‘Jane Eyre’._   
_I miss you too so much. Screech at Henry for me._   
_Emma_

**To: s** **wanprincess@gmail.com**   
**From: r.mills@storybrooke.school.edu**   
**Subject: Musings after Henry’s second birthday**

**Dear Emma,**   
**Two years. It’s been just over two years since you gave me the greatest gift of all time. Henry’s a little person now, with a very distinct personality – stubborn, determined, imaginative… He has your chin. And your smile. I didn’t see enough of your smile when you lived in Storybrooke. Come back and visit sometime; Daniel will make you smile, I promise. He’s embraced the power of the dad joke so if nothing else, you will smile because he is so tragically awful.**   
**Daniel’s on call tonight. I’m in my own bed, sitting up with my laptop, and Henry’s curled up beside me, snoring into my stomach. It’s a big treat for him to sleep in our bed and it’s become our routine when Daniel’s away. If that makes him a momma’s boy then so be it. I find I don’t much care.**   
**RM**

It’s the last email. Emma looks at the dates for the first time and realises. It’s the night Daniel died. Her shoulders are shaking when she clicks on ‘reply’.

_To: r.mills@storybrooke.school.com_   
_From: swanprincess@gmail.com_   
_Subject: I am the worst_

_Dear Regina,_   
_Ruby told me about Daniel. I know this is far too late to be of any use but I am so sorry. He was the best man I’ve ever known._   
_So I’m no good at this but I’m thinking of you and Henry and sending all my love your way._   
_All my love,_   
_Emma_

Mary Margaret returns home from her doctor’s appointment at this point and Emma shuts her computer down, resolving not to look at her emails until morning. “You look tired,” she says.

“A bit emotionally drained,” Emma says. “How was your check up?”

“Good news,” she says, smiling. “The chemo’s shrunk the thymoma. They can’t cut it out but with radiation and keeping in good health I might live for a long time yet.” Emma knows that ‘long’ in cancer terms is different from regular people’s ‘long’, but it’s the best news they’ve had since Mary Margaret was diagnosed. She hugs her, hand rubbing her prickly scalp.

“I think this calls for a celebration,” she says. “What do you want to do?”

“Junk food and DVDs work for me,” Mary Margaret says. “I’m going out with David tomorrow. I called him in the car.”

So Emma texts Ruby, who comes by after closing the diner, leftover pie, three burgers and a giant batch of curly fries, and the three of them lie on the rug in front of the heater, watching ‘Veronica Mars’ and eating until Emma’s stomach is bloated and it hurts to move.

“God, you’re sexy,” Ruby says when Mary Margaret moves to change the DVD. Emma’s lying on her back, groaning.

“Ungh,” Emma says. “Fries will forever be my downfall.”

Mary Margaret rubs Emma’s stomach. “Poor baby.”

“Don’t pity her, Miss Blanchard,” Ruby says. She’s never really got out of the habit of calling Mary Margaret the name she called her when she was her elementary school teacher. “She brought it on herself.”

Mary Margaret laughs. “Emma so often does,” she says and Emma swats at her hand.

“You’re both horribly mean to me,” she mutters. “Just play the damn episode.”

She wakes early the next morning, the guilt of over-eating setting in, and dresses for a run, careful not to wake Ruby who fell asleep in Emma’s bed and is snoring lightly. Mary Margaret’s up when she goes downstairs, hands wrapped around a cup of tea. “Off for a run,” Emma says.

“Be safe,” she replies.

Emma runs fast through the silent streets of Storybrooke, the light still grey and cold. She passes 108 Mifflin Street and pauses. There’s a light on in Regina’s study and she wants so much to knock on the window and see her but Regina has to make the next move. Emma’s not going to be pushy. She knows all too well how being pushed can send people barrelling in the opposite direction.

She shivers. It’s a cold morning, too cold to be standing around in damp running gear. She’ll see her at Henry’s soccer game.

When she returns, Ruby – the eternal chef – is making pancake batter, while Mary Margaret chops fruit. “What can I do?” Emma asks.

“Shower,” Ruby says, wrinkling her nose. So Emma showers, letting the hot water soak over her body and, after pancakes and fruit salad, Ruby returns to the diner and she and Mary Margaret walk over to the elementary school field. It’s busy, everyone in Storybrooke seems to be out to support the team and she sees Henry, in a purple shirt too large for him. He grins and waves wildly before returning to warm ups with his team.

They find a spot and Mary Margaret wraps a blanket across her legs, waving David over. “Sweetheart,” he says, kissing her. “Hey Emma,” he adds as Emma pretends to throw up because something about being around the two of them makes her revert back to being a teenager.

“How’s the sheriffing?” Emma asks.

“Not a word,” David says and she glares.

“I’m an English teacher,” she says. “I think you’ll find that it is a neologism.”

“Ah, well, in that case,” David says. “The sheriffing goes well. Nice to see you here supporting the home side.”

“Actually, I’m supporting the Orono Prep Tigers,” Mary Margaret says and giggles at David’s look of horror. She pulls the blanket across his knees as well. The teams take their positions. Henry’s a midfielder, where Emma used to play, in those brief moments she was at one school long enough to get in a full season. She looks around and can’t see Regina, though she’s sure she’s there in the crowds somewhere so she settles in to enjoy the game.

It’s not exactly a riveting game but Henry seems to be enjoying himself, running wildly from one end of the field to the other, face pink and shaggy brown hair glued to his forehead. He gets a couple of good passes in, one resulting in the Storybrooke Dragons almost scoring.

There’s one kid on his team who’s pretty amazing, a pretty blonde girl called Ava, judging by the cheers when she get a penalty kick. Even from the distance, Emma can see the dazed, soppy look on Henry’s face and makes a mental note to tease him about this Ava girl later. Apparently, genetics have won out in that area too because Emma’s never been good at concealing her emotions either, whereas Regina’s the queen of it.

At half time, David gets them all hot chocolate. Emma spots Regina at a distance, by herself in the far recesses of the stands, but there’s no way to get to her without being a total nuisance. She sips hot chocolate and concentrates on the second half.

It’s nil-all with just two minutes before the final whistle when Henry gets the ball, dribbles and then passes neatly to Ava, who hooks it into the goal. Going by the reaction of the crowd on the stands they may as well have scored the winning goal in the world cup. Emma finds herself cheering along with the rest of them, spilling the remains of her hot chocolate into the grass when she stands to whoop and clap.

Henry’s buzzing when he runs of the field and she watches from a distance as he tackles Regina into a hug. She doesn’t seem to care that he’s covered with mud and grass, but hugs him tight, pressing a kiss into his hair, darkened with sweat. Henry looks around, sees her and waves her over.

“Well done, kid,” Emma says, ruffling his hair.

“Thanks!” Henry says. He’s beaming. “Hey, Mom’s made cookies. You should come over and have some.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Emma says, looking over Henry’s head at Regina, begging, praying for a reason to say ‘yes’.

“You wouldn’t be intruding,” Regina says. “Henry wants you there.” Her brown eyes are soft though, the light catching them so they’re almost golden, and her lips are tilted upwards at the corners.

“Okay,” Emma says. “I’ll just let Mary Margaret know.” She jogs over to her foster mom, who waves her off. She’s starting her date with David early and Emma so doesn’t need to be around for that.

At Mifflin Street she’s awkward again, standing in the hall, unsure whether she should slip off her boots or where she should be. “Henry, shower,” Regina says. “I’ll have cocoa ready by the time you’re clean.” Grumbling, Henry drags himself upstairs.

“So,” Emma says, following her into the kitchen. “That was a good game.”

Regina gets milk, chocolate powder and chilli out and puts a pan on the stovetop. “It’s their first win. Henry will be buzzing all week.”

“He’s got good instincts,” Emma says. “Do you need help with anything?”

Regina shakes her head. “I do, however, want to say thank you.”

Emma freezes. “For?”

“Your emails,” Regina says. Her voice is soft, having lost the domineering quality, though it still glides like velvet. “I cried.”

Emma navigates the kitchen island until she is only a step away from Regina. “I know it’s too little, too late,” she says. “But I want to make this right. I’ve loved you for a really long time and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

Regina closes the gap between them, pulling Emma into a tight hug. Emma can feel their bodies connect, her hips flush against Regina’s, her hands on Regina’s back, pulling her closer and tighter, fingers tracing the bumps of her spine. Regina’s hands are buried in Emma’s hair and she cries.

“I’m sorry,” Emma murmurs. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Regina pulls back. Despite wet eyes, she’s smiling. And then she kisses Emma. It’s soft and chaste and tastes of salt and Emma could stay like this forever but there’s the pounding of Henry’s footsteps above and, as much as Henry thinks he’s okay with all this, Emma doesn’t want a repeat of last time. “We should talk,” she says. “And take this really slow.”

Regina nods. “Stay for dinner,” she says. “We can talk when Henry’s gone to bed.”

Henry appears in the kitchen entranceway and raises an eyebrow, a mirror of his mother in this moment. “I believe I was promised cocoa would be ready by the time I got back,” he says, attempting an imperious tone that he cannot yet pull off.

Emma grins. “Sorry, kid,” she says. “I distracted your mom.” Henry’s brow crinkles and he looks between the two of them. Emma nods. He grins and sneaks two cookies from the cooling rack, collapsing onto a kitchen chair. “While we wait for cocoa,” Emma adds, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You can tell me all about how in love you are with that Ava girl.”

Regina laughs, the sound deep and melodious, Henry grimaces and tries to wriggle away from Emma, and Emma wonders if it’s possible to burst from this much hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title: 'To Sir With Love' by Lulu
> 
> Thank you for the love and support you have given this weird little story.


End file.
